A Conceptual Design Approach of Coupled Shear Walls

Abstract

The growth of population density and shortage of land in urban areas are two major problems for all developing countries including India. In order to mitigate these two problems, the designers resort to high-rise buildings, which are rapidly increasing in number, with various architectural configurations and ingenious use of structural materials. However, earthquakes are the most critical loading condition for all landbased structures locatedinthe seismically active regions. The Indian subcontinent is divided into different seismic zones as indicated by IS 1893 (Part 1) [1], facilitating the designer to provide adequate protection against earthquake. A recent earthquake in India on January 26th, 2001 caused considerable damage to a large number of RCC high-rise buildings (number of storey varies from 4 to 15) and tremendous loss of life. The reasons were (a) most of the buildings had soft and weak ground storey that provided open space for parking, (b) poor quality of concrete in columns, and (c) poor detailing of the structural design (http://www.nicee.org/eqeiitk/ uploads/EQR Bhuj.pdf).