A study of the behaviour of multi-storey coupled shear walls.

This thesis deals with the elastic analysis of non-uniform coupled shear wall structures.The main methods of analysis available for coupled shear walls, namely the wide column frame method, the continuous connection method and the finite element method, are discussed. Particular attention is given to non-uniform walls, non-rigid foundations, the importance of beam-wall flexibility and the importance of coupling action. The direct solution of the governing differential equation, derived using the continuous connection approach, is briefly outlined for a uniform structure, but since the equations involved very soon became unmanageable when the method is extended to cater for non-uniform walls, a numerical solution in the form of the Matrix Progression Method is studied with a view to using it for complicated structures. The method is first applied to a uniform coupled shear wall containing one band of openings and subjected to both a uniformly distributed lateral load and a point load. The analysis is then extended to deal with structures having abrupt changes in geometry and containing more than one band of openings. A brief description of the computational methods involved in the solution is given. Matrix Progression solutions are presented for a variety of non-uniform coupled shear walls, including walls of varying degrees of coupling action supported on both central and offset columns, and the results are compared with wide column frame solutions. In addition, for both symmetrical and non-symmetrical walls with one abrupt change in cross-section, the solutions are compared with experimental results obtained from tests on Araldite models.