Effect of Steel and Concrete Coupling Beam on Seismic Behavior of RC Frame Accompanied with Coupled Shear Walls

Abstract

Construction of diagonal reinforcement in concrete coupling beam is difficult so its replacement is steel coupling beam. Literature shows that a few studies have been done on seismic behavior of RC coupled wall with steel coupling beam. In this paper, the influences of increase in building height on the seismic nonlinear behavior of dual structural systems in forms of RC frames accompanied with RC coupled shear walls once with concrete then with steel coupling beam have been investigated. Therefore the buildings with 7, 14 and 21 story and containing RC coupled wall systems with concrete and steel coupling beams used to perform the pushover analysis having different load patterns. Some seismic parameters such as ductility factor, response modification factor due to ductility, over-strength facto, response modification factor (R) and displacement amplification factor (Cd) have been studied. Regarding the results, the response modification factor for the mentioned structural system is higher than the values which are used in Codes of practice for seismic resistant design of buildings. Also, the displacement amplification factor and the response modification factor increased as the structure height decreased and the value of these factors at steel coupling beam structures are higher than concrete coupling beams.