• Computers and Concrete
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• v.3 no.5
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• pp.285-299
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• 2006

The free vibration of stiffened and damaged coupled shear walls is investigated using the mixed finite element method. The anisotropic damage model is adopted to describe the damage extent of the reinforced concrete shear wall element. The internal energy of a locally damaged shear wall element is derived. Polynomial shape functions established by Kwan are used to present the component of displacements vector on each point within the wall element. The principle of virtual work is employed to deduce the stiffness matrix of a damaged shear wall element. The stiffened system is reinforced by an additional stiffening beam at some level of the structure. This induces additional axial forces, and thus reduces the bending moments in the walls and the lateral deflection, and increases the natural frequencies. The effects of the damage extent and the stiffening beam on the free vibration characteristics of the structure are studied. The optimal location of the stiffening beam for increasing as far as possible the first natural frequency of vibration is presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.479-489
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• 2008

In this study an approximate method based on the continuum approach and transfer matrix method for static and dynamic analyses of stiffened multi-bay coupled shear walls is presented. In this method the whole structure is idealized as a sandwich beam. Initially the differential equation of this equivalent sandwich beam is written then shape functions for each storey is obtained by the solution of differential equations. By using boundary conditions and storey transfer matrices which are obtained by these shape functions, system modes and periods can be calculated. Reliability of the study is shown with a few examples. A computer program has been developed in MATLAB and numerical samples have been solved for demonstration of the reliability of this method. The results of the samples show the agreement between the present method and the other methods given in literature.