Seismic Design Charts for Coupled Shear Walls

Charts are presented for the seismic design of uniform fixed‐base coupled shear wall buildings by the response spectrum method using the first two modes. The building is treated as a continuum and its actual mode shapes are utilized for evaluating the various modal responses; namely, the top deflection, the shear force and moments in the walls, and the shear force in the connecting medium. The distributions of the moments and shears along the height are also presented, thus permitting the curtailment of reinforcements where appropriate. The results are given for practical values of the two nondimensional parameters which between them incorporate all the geometric and material properties of the system. The use of the design charts is demonstrated through the example of a 26‐story building. The comparison with available approximate results based on the mode shapes of a slender cantilever shows small differences for the RSS response. However large ones occurred for the response in the second mode. Thus, for relatively tall buildings, where the contribution of the second mode predominates, the approximate method may prove inadequate.