Seismic behavior of coupled wall structure with steel and viscous damping composite coupling beams

Abstract

In order to reduce the interstory drift ratio and floor acceleration of coupled wall structure, a new type of steel and viscous damping composite coupling beam (SVDCCB) is developed. The proposed SVDCCB consists of a central fuse element and two steel beam segments on both side of the beam. The fuse element is composed of chord members, buckling-restrained energy dissipaters and viscous dampers. The energy dissipaters are used to dissipate seismic energy and the viscous dampers are used to add supplemental damping to the structure. Moreover, the dampers are placed at the corners of the fuse element to reduce the weight of the damper, in this way, the damaged energy dissipaters and viscous dampers can be quickly replaced after earthquake. A nonlinear numerical model and design methodology of the coupling beam are developed. A shear wall prototype building was modeled in OpenSees and the seismic performance of this structure was investigated under different intensities of earthquake excitations. The seismic behaviors of the coupled wall structure with the novel coupling beams (CW-SVDCCB) are evaluated and compared with the structure with concrete reinforced coupling beams (CW-RCCB) and the structure with steel coupling beams (CW-SCB). Results indicated that the weight of single energy dissipater arranged at the corner of the fuse can be greatly reduced compared with in the diagonal direction of the fuse. The SVDCCB can efficiently limit the floor accelerations of the structure compared with the other two types of coupling beams. Moreover, the residual fuse rotation of SVDCCB is smaller than that of the steel coupling beam means that the SVDCCB can be replaced more conveniently.