Enhancing the seismic performance of building using damage-avoidance shear wall hold-downs

Abstract

Concrete coupled wall is one of the outstanding seismic resisting systems for mid to high-rise building structures located in a high seismic region. In this system, the link beam provides coupling action between the beam and the adjacent wall panel, which significantly increases the wall system's lateral stiffness and eventually reduce the footprint for the seismic resisting system. However, once the link beam is damaged due to a severe earthquake, it is difficult, costly, and time-consuming to be repaired, which results in business disruption and the increased building life cycle cost. To deal with these issues, the Resilient Slip Friction Joint (RSFJ) has recently been introduced and employed in the New Zealand construction industry. This novel technology does not only aim to provide “life safety” but also “immediate occupancy” criteria. The flag-shaped hysteresis of the RSFJs provides the required seismic performance, including a self-centring behaviour. This paper addresses the enhanced seismic performance of the structures using this system. An eight-storey reinforced concrete building is designed using the conventional forced-based design method, and its seismic performance is evaluated by non-linear static pushover and nonlinear dynamic time-history simulations. The results showed that this system can provide a high level of structural ductility while providing fully self-centring behaviour.