Study On Seismic Performance Of Coupling Beam In Coupled Shear Wall

Coupling beams are the most important component of the shear wall structure, it ischaracterized by large internal forces, large shear deformation and poor ductility. Generallycoupling beams have high stiffness, so the shear walls with a strong coupling beam may notachieve the expectant damage which required coupling beams have the first failure. Inaddition, domestic and international numerous test show coupling beams are prone to havethe shear failure. Shear deformation factors can not be ignored when engineers calculateinternal forces of coupling beam. Common reinforcement methods can not meet therequirements of shear strength and ductility of coupling beams. The domestic and foreignexperts propose a various type of reinforcement to improve the seismic performance of thecoupling beam. This paper studied the influencing factors of the failure modes of coupledshear wall. It also studied shear capacity and failure modes of coupling beams withdifferent reinforcement arrangements.In this paper, the finite element method was used to calculate two coupled shear wallswhich are composed by two straight walls and composed by two T-shaped walls, and itmainly analyzed the cracking and crushing situations of concrete and stress of steelreinforcement.The results show: when the coupled shear walls which were composed bytwo straight walls reach the limit state, the branch of shell wall is destroyed first whilecoupling beams are not destroyed; when the coupled shear walls which were composed bytwo T-shaped walls reach the limit state, the coupling beam is destroyed first while thebranch of shell walls are not destroyed. According to the results, this paper made a numberof recommendations for structural design from the point of conceptual design.In this paper, the finite element method was also used to calculate several couplingbeams with different reinforcement arrangements which have the same weight ofreinforcements. The load-displacement curves of these beams and Mises stress ofconcrete， stress of reinforcement are analyzed. The results showed that the coupling beamwhose stirrup was divided into several rings along the depth of the beam has the highestshear capacity， and exhibits the best deformation capacity. The beam with globalreinforcement also has higher shear capacity and exhibits better deformation capacity.According to the results, this paper made a number of recommendations for selecting avalid form of reinforcement for the coupling beam.