The displacement capacity of reinforced concrete coupled walls

With the identification of criteria of performance-based seismic design, the need to focus on estimations of displacement capacities of ductile system emerges. This involves redefinitions of some properties of reinforced concrete structures. A system comprising components with very different characteristics, a coupled wall structure, is used to demonstrate how displacement and ductility capacities, satisfying specific performance criteria, can be predicted simply, even before the required seismic strength of the system is established. An attractive feature of this approach is that the strengths of components, which contribute to the required seismic strength of the system, may be freely chosen. The astute designer may advantageously exploit this freedom.