Concrete Coupling Beam

Description

(Concrete Coupling Beam)
Concrete shear walls provide an efficient lateral- force-resisting system to resist seismic and wind demands for mid- and high-rise buildings.
When openings through a shear wall are stacked on multiple levels, the two parts of the shear wall are coupled by the concrete beams.

What is It ?

This system has been predominantly used for seismic design of tall buildings constructed on the West Coast of the US.
Performance-Based Seismic Design is used when the building height exceeds 160 ft (48.8 m) or 240 ft (73.2m) if certain requirements are satisfied.

Behavior’s

A coupled shear wall is stiffer than the combined stiffness of two individual shear walls.
Coupling beams are designed to act as “structural fuse”, i.e. dissipate earthquake energy through yielding.