Seismic Behavior of Diagonally reinforced Coupling Beams according to the amount of Transverse Reinforcement

Abstract

Coupled shear wall system is an excellent lateral force resistance system that consists of independent shear walls formed by openings such as doors and windows and coupling beams connecting the wall piers. In recently middle and high rise buildings or coupled shear walls for seismic performance improvement, diagonal reinforcement can be used as main reinforcement for shear and bending in coupling beam. The inelastic behavior of diagonally reinforced coupling beams has been experimentally demonstrated to have much better performance for strength, stiffness and energy dissipation capacity maintenance than the behavior in existing detail beams. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the amount of transverse reinforcement for diagonally reinforced coupling beam with span-depth ratio 2.0 and 3.5. For this purpose, experimental tests were conducted with specimens with different amount of transverse reinforcement. It is observed that the amount of transverse reinforcement significantly affects the strength and deformation capacity of the beams.