Seismic design and engineering practice of 10-story shear wall structure with replaceable viscoelastic coupling beams

Structures with replaceable energy-dissipating elements are attractive systems for improving building resilience. Damage in these structures is mainly limited to dissipating elements, which can be replaced after earthquakes. Among the energy-dissipating elements, viscoelastic dampers (VEDs) can dissipate energy even under small deformations while providing stable fatigue performances, which benefits high-rise buildings in resisting both wind and earthquake loadings. This paper presents the seismic design of an engineering practice of a 10-story shear wall building with replaceable viscoelastic coupling beams. A new type of viscoelastic material that has negligible frequency dependency is adopted to provide stable constraint for the wall piers. The design details, including VEDs, nonreplaceable segment, and the detachable connection, are exemplified. The numerical model of the replaceable structure is established and analyzed under dynamic loadings. Results confirm that the implementation of replaceable viscoelastic coupling beams improves structural seismic performance. The plastic rotation at the end of the coupling beam is significantly reduced up to 41.4% compared with the traditional coupled shear wall structure.