COUPLED SHEAR WALL

COUPLED SHEAR WALL

o Two or more walls are interconnected
by a system of beam or slab.
o Commonly used in medium- and highrise structures in combination with RC
or steel moment frames.
o The coupling beams provide transfer
of vertical forces between adjacent
walls, which creates a frame-like
coupling action that resists a portion
of the total overturning moment
induced by the seismic action
o It can be used economically to resist
lateral loads in building up to about
40-stories

BEHAVIOUR OF COUPLED SHEAR WALL

the moment-rotation behavior of the

beam under a point load applied to
represent the conditions near the beamto-wall connections during lateral
loading of the coupled wall system.
The left wall region is assumed to be
rigid and fixed.
The right wall region can move along
the horizontal and vertical directions
but can not rotate.
The wind moment level is the resisted
by the bending moment in the two walls
of the axial force

CLASSIFICATION OF COUPLED SHEAR WALL FRAME

STRUCTURE

Special moment frame detailing is

not appropriate for short coupling
beams subjected to high shear
stresses.
Dowel bars crossing the coupling
beam/wall interface were shown to
help prevent sliding shear failures,
but could not prevent stiffness
degradation and severe pinching in
the hysteresis response.
A rhombic layout of diagonal
reinforcement requires less
complicated detailing than diagonally
reinforced coupling beams, and
exhibited less stiffness degradation
of coupling beams detailed as special
moment frames.

Special moment frame

Rhombic
reinforcement layout

Full-length/cut-off
dowels

Diagonal reinforcement

CLASSIFICATION OF COUPLED SHEAR WALL FRAME

STRUCTURE

The diagonal reinforcement appeared to

provide the most stable behavior and
highest energy dissipation.

Diagonal reinforcement, designed to carry

the entire shear demand, is required in
most cases

Column-type transverse reinforcement

must be provided to confine either
diagonal reinforcement or entire member

Little longitudinal reinforcement,

terminated at the wall near the coupling
beam end.

ANALYSIS MODEL FOR COUPLED WALL

EQUIVALENT
FRAME
ANALYSIS:

The beam-column element formulation used in an

equivalent frame analysis of a CW system should
satisfy a number of constraints.
For linear analyses:
the elements used should account for the
flexural as well as shear stiffness of both wall
and coupling beam members.

For non-linear analysis:

the elements should accurately represent flexural

and shear stiffness's and strengths as well as the
deformation capacities of the members. The
models must also represent the behavior of
unsymmetrical wall shapes that have different
stiffness, strength and deformation capacity in
different directions.

ANALYSIS MODEL FOR COUPLED WALL

FINITE ELEMENT
MODEL:

Finite element models used to analyze a

CW system should be constructed with
the following points in mind. In general,
plane stress membrane elements or shell
elements are suitable for modeling wall
components.
For linear analyses:
The effective Youngs modulus should
be reduced to account for the expected
effect of cracking.
For nonlinear analysis:
The analysis model should account for
the nonlinear behavior of concrete under
tension, compression and multiaxial
conditions.

COUPLING BEAM MODEL

The coupling beam should be modeled using element that account for both
flexural and shear properties of the beam.

BEAM WALL CONNECTION MODEL:

The steel or steel-concrete composite coupling beams are not effectively

fixed at the face of the wall. the additional flexibility needs to wall force
and lateral deflection are computed with reasonable accuracy. The effective
fixed point of steel or steel-concrete composite coupling beams taken
one- third of embedded length from the face of wall.

ADVANDAGES

It reduces the moments that must be resisted by the

individual wall piers resulting in a more efficient structural system.

It provides a means by which seismic energy is dissipated over the entire

height of the wall system as the coupling beams undergo inelastic
deformations.

The important advantage of a coupled wall system is that it has a lateral

stiffness that is significantly greater than the sum of its component wall
piers permitting a reduced footprint for the lateral load resisting system.

CASE STUDY
o The highest reinforced concrete
tower, located in high seismic
zone.
o Having a general overview of the
case, some especial aspects of the
tower, and the assessment of its
seismic load bearing system with
considering some important
factors will be discussed.

A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE TOWER

The tower is a 56-story tall building, located in Tehran, which is the most
high seismicity zone of Iran and extensively populated nowadays .
As the policy of construction in Tehran is toward the vertical
accommodation, so building such a tower would be helpful to approach
this goal.
The tower has three transverse main walls with the angle of 120 and
multiple sidewalls perpendicular to each of them.
It seems that this kind of architectural configuration is due to aesthetic
considerations.

TOWER PROPERTIES
NO.OF ELEVATION

56

HEIGHT

173m

TYPICAL FOOLR AREA

3000m2

EFFECTIVE RESIDENTIAL AREA

126000m2

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

COUPLED SHEAR WALL

VOLUME OF CONCRETE

125000m3

WEIGHT OF REINFORCEMENT

26000 ton

STEEL WEIGHT PER AREA

200 Kg/m2

NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS

571

FOUNDATION

MAT

STRUCTURAL SYSTEM

Plan View

Main walls are RC shear walls

with regular staggered openings.
Sidewalls are also RC shear walls,
connected to the main walls with
coupling beams.
Some of sidewalls contain
continuous column of openings
and the rest are solid.

GENERAL CONSIDERATION IN THE TOWER

The tower general considerations are the followings:
Overall torsion
Time-dependent effects
Construction sequence loading
As the tower is located in a seismic dominant site, wind effects are
neglected and the evaluation of the tower behavior is limited to seismic
considerations only.
Overall torsion:
In tall buildings, which have axisymmetrical lateral load resistant elements, here are
three main walls; overall torsion should be considered as an important effective
behavior.
Regardless of the lateral in plane sidewall stiffness, the tower is not supposed to have
any torsional stiffness.
Therefore, not only the sidewalls are assumed to be a main gravity load bearing
system of the tower, but also they are considered as a torsional resisting system.

GENERAL CONSIDERATION IN THE TOWER

Time dependent effects :

In the design of high-rise concrete structures, a cumulative vertical nonuniform displacement in vertical elements is another subject that must be
considered.
Due to the elastic nature of concrete and its basic characteristics of initial
shrinkage during curing process and creep, the high-rise structure will
shorten during construction and for some period thereafter. Also,
differential vertical displacements due to probable different loading
patterns may cause a redistribution of forces in structural components.

GENERAL CONSIDERATION IN THE TOWER

Construction sequence loading:

The long been aware of the inaccurate analytical demands in the upper
floors of buildings due to the assumption of the instantaneous appearance
of the dead load after the structure is built.
In many cases the analytical results of the final structure can be
significantly affected by the construction sequence of the structure and the
manner in which the structure is built and activated and the incremental
dead load gets applied.
The Tall buildings, which have structural elements with different
longitudinal stiffness, are sensitive to these effects

SEISMIC LOAD BEARING

SYSTEM

The seismic effectiveness of

structural system will be
explored.
It should be investigated if the
structure has enough level of
ductility, as a seismic system, to
satisfy and, effective contribution
of coupled walls, which
essentially depends on the
behavior of coupling
elements(beam interconnecting
main wall and sidewalls), is of the
prime importance.

EFFECT OF AXIAL LOAD ON SHEAR WALL

DUCTILITY

According to the design codes,

shear walls cannot be used as
both gravity and seismic bracing
systems.
A seismic bracing system,
conceptually, should have a level
of ductility,
therefore the decrements of the
bracing elements ductility under
axial loads should be considered
in conceptual design.

The main walls as a seismic bracing

system and sidewalls to carry
gravity loads.
This tower has a considerable
behavior complexity because of its
especial geometric specifications
such as high aspect ratio of
sidewalls especial architectural
plan form and some unknown facts
about coupled wall system behavior.
To quantify effects on gravity load
distribution due to mentioned facts,
numerical models of the tower
assuming different number of
stories over the foundation were
developed.

EFFECT OF AXIAL LOAD ON SHEAR WALL

DUCTILITY
Based on analysis results, main
walls about 35% up to 60% of
gravity loads varying with the
story .
It seems usual for a designer, to
have an unreasonable judgment
about gravity load distribution in
the tower.
for example main walls are a
seismic bracing system and
sidewalls are gravity load bearing
system, but as it is mentioned
above, not only main walls are
assumed to carry seismic loads,
but also they are going to a
significant percentage of gravity
loads.

SUMMARY

the time-dependent effects, and provide for them in the design. Having
concrete structural elements with different longitudinal stiffness makes the
tower to be more sensitive to differential displacements due to concrete
time dependency.
The using shear walls for both gravity and bracing system is unacceptable
neither conceptually nor economically.
The concrete in shear walls is a good way to provide more level of ductility
and getting more stable behavior.
By considering both time dependency of concrete and construction
sequence loading simultaneously in analyses, the critical demands would
be found to occur in the middle height of the structure (here is somewhere
between 25~35th story).

THANK YOU