Design of coupled wall structural systems

In most building codes, there are very limited guidelines regarding the proportioning of the walls and coupling beams. Consequently, the response of the coupled wall assemblies during a moderate to major earthquake has been noted to fall short of acceptable ductile behavior (see J. Moehle (Ed.), ‘Preliminary report on the seismological and engineering aspects of the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake’, Report No. UCB/EERC-94/01, Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, University of California at Berkeley, January 1994). The objective of this paper is to discuss some of the current practices in the proportioning and design of coupled wall assemblies, highlight some of the shortcomings of these methods, and provide a new design guideline aimed at a more comprehensive design of structures.