Performance-Based Seismic Design Of An Innovative HCW System With Shear Links based on IDA

Structural members yielding in shear are used in earthquake resistant systems, such as eccentrically braced steel frames and systems with passive energy dissipation devices, in a conscious effort to concentrate the energy dissipation capacity of the structure in components that can be repaired or replaced after a major earthquake. This paper presents an improved approach to a newly suggested design procedure of an innovative Hybrid Coupled Shear Wall (HCW) system consisting of a RC shear wall coupled with steel side columns via dissipative steel shear links. The primary design objective is to reduce or possibly avoid the damage in the RC wall while concentrating the seismic damage to the replaceable steel links which are shear critical, i.e. intended to fail in shear rather than flexure. To this purpose, a performance based approach is followed considering several limit states such as IO (Immediate Occupancy based on a limitation of the interstorey drifts), LS (Life Safety with yielding of the link, restoration possibilities of the links and limitation of the damages in the RC wall) and CP (near collapse situation with possible significant damages in the RC wall). The proposed design procedure is applied to several case studies which are analysed through nonlinear static and incremental dynamic analyses using finite element models in order to optimize the respective contribution of the wall, side columns as well as the links in terms of strength, stiffness and energy dissipation capacities.