Seismic Behaviour Investigation of Steel Coupling Beams through Experimental Results

In current practice, coupled concrete walls are employed in seismic design of reinforced concrete buildings.High performance of concrete coupled walls is provided through coupling beams when shear behavior dominate in failure mode. In current seismic design codes, using diagonal reinforcment could provide adequate strength and ductility of concrete coupling beams. On the other hand, limited shear capacity,complexity in construction, anddiscrepancy in effective stiffness caused using steel coupling beams instead of R.C ones. The results of experimental research conducted on steel coupling beams indicated high displacement ductility and energy dissipation capability, superior lateral stiffness of the coupled shear walls, and stable hysteresis behavior in comparison to concrete coupling beams. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of connection detailing and failure mechanism on seismic behaviour of steel coupling beams based on experimental researches. Existing experimental results will be gathered from technical literatures and effect of connection detailing and failure mechanism will be investigated