Seismic analysis and design of damping controlled coupled shear wall with vertical dampers in coupling beams

It is suggested that the coupled reinforced concrete shear wall should be disconnected at the middle of coupling beams and then steel dampers would be set vertically in the slits to couple the disconnected wall piers,resulting in a damping controlled shear wall system.The steel dampers weaken the wall in stiffness,enhance the capacity of energy dissipation during strong earthquakes,and then reduce the earthquake action and avoid severe structural damage.Regarding the damper and the coupling beam together as an equivalent coupling beam,both the damping and stiffness properties of the damping controlled system can be analyzed simply by continuous medium method.The damping control mechanism of the system was investigated and the formulas for calculating key parameters were derived simultaneously.According to the analysis results,a simplified performance/demand-based design method which adopts the damper ductility factor and coupling ratio as the governing factors was proposed for the convenience of practical application of the proposed damped wall.The design procedure was prescribed and discussed in detail and verified by a simple design example.Nonlinear dynamic analysis of the designed damping controlled wall indicates that with a proper set of damping parameters,the wall's dynamic responses can be well controlled compared with the conventional wall.