Seismic performance evaluation of staggered wall system structures with middle corridors

In this paper, the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) staggered wall structures with middle corridor was evaluated. To this end, 6‐, 12‐ and 18‐storey structural models were designed and were analyzed to investigate the seismic load‐resisting capacity. The response modification factors were computed based on the overstrength and the ductility capacities obtained from pushover curves. The effect of a few retrofit schemes on the enhancement of strength and ductility was also investigated. The pushover analysis results showed that the response modification factors ranged between about 4.0 and 6.0 with the average value around 5.0. When the bending rigidity of the link beams increased up to 100%, the overall overstrength increased by only about 25%. When the rebar ratio of the link beams was increased by 50%, the overstrength increased by about 40%. The replacement of the RC link beams with steel box beams resulted in superior performance of the structures with reduced beam depth. The displacement time histories of the model structures subjected to the earthquake ground motions scaled to the design seismic load showed that the maximum interstorey drifts were well below the limit state specified in the design code. Based on the analysis results, it was concluded that the staggered wall systems with a middle corridor had enough capacity to resist the design seismic load. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.