AN INNOVATIVE SHEAR WALLS COUPLING FOR ENHANCEMENT OF PERFORMANCE OF RC STRUCTURES

This research work numerically investigates an innovative shear walls coupling for enhancement of seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures. The new proposed technique links plane, relatively distant, shear walls with a top roof beam constituting framed-shear walls. The investigation is carried out for a twelve-floor reinforced concrete structure under the action of earthquake loading. The investigated structure has a flat slab-column construction system with four shear walls, 400 mm x 3000 mm each, as the main lateral load resisting system. Each pair of aligned walls are connected at their top by a 6-meters long stiff beam. The top beam has the same width as the shear walls and different depths ranging from 500 mm to 3000 mm. Analysis is carried out using the Applied Element Method. The Applied Element Method (AEM) is a discrete follows a discrete crack approach which was proven to track the structural collapse behavior passing through all stages of the application of loads. Behavior is evaluated in terms of the flexural moment redistribution in shear walls, the lateral load capacity increase of the walls, and the highest peak ground accelerations that the structure can withstand.