The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Prediction of the seismic responses of R/C frame-coupled wall structures

Aktan, Ahmet E.; Bertero, Vitelmo V.; Piazza, M.

UCB/EERC-82/12, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1982-08, 205 pages (515/A39/1982P)

This is the second report summarizing the progress of continuing research on the seismic-resistant design of reinforced concrete coupled structural walls at the Univ. of California, Berkeley. The first progress report, "The seismic resistant design of R/C coupled structural walls," by Aktan and Bertero, June 1981 (UCB/EERC-81/07), contained the background information, objectives, and scope of the complete program. The present report documents the analytical investigations carried out within the integrated analytical and experimental research program and assesses (1) the state of the art of analytical seismic response simulation of R/C frame-wall/coupled wall structural systems, and (2) the state of the practice (code) for guiding the designer in achieving an optimum seismic design of these systems. The conclusions reached after making these assessments were (1) The state of the art of analytical modeling of R/C for the seismic response prediction of frame-wall structural systems is inadequate to predict force and distortion responses and their maxima and distributions within the structure, within reasonable bounds of confidence. (2) The state of the practice was not observed to lead to a design in accordance with the performance criteria expected from the design. The shear strength of the coupled wall system of the structure was assessed to be inadequate at the collapse limit state of the structure.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-82-12.pdf (15 MB)