Lateral stiffness and vibration characteristics of damaged RC coupled shear walls strengthened with thin composite plates

This paper deals with the bending and vibration analysis of moderately damaged coupled shear wall structures with externally bonded carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) sheets. In the analytical formulation, the adherent and the adhesive layers are all modelled as shear walls, using the mixed finite-element method (FEM). The anisotropic damage model is adopted to describe the damage extent of the RC coupled shear walls. A free vibration analysis is carried out to determine the frequencies of multi-storey strengthened shear wall structures with openings. Test problems are conducted to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method. Numerical results are presented to show the performance of reinforced concrete coupled shear wall structures bonded with composite plates in which a damaged RC shear wall with openings strengthened by a thin steel sheets is treated as a comparator. The effects of damage extent and of the bonded sheets on the bending and vibration characteristics of damaged RC coupled shear wall structures are also studied.