ABSTRACT
In tall buildings, central cores composed by reinforced concrete shear walls linked by coupling beams provide an efficient structural system to resist earthquake loads. However, building codes and design recommendations are most appropriate for smaller buildings with stand-alone shear walls and fail to adequately address slender 3D linked cores composed of “I”, “L” or “T” shapes. This leads to overly conservative and rigid design solutions with low dissipative behavior when subjected to seismic loads. The present paper aims to propose a new rational methodology for design of these lateral-force resisting systems. Linear and nonlinear prototype models based on the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP project, the 500 Folsom Tower, are built to investigate the widely used central core consisting of linked “L” shape shear walls. Nonlinear Response History Analyses (NRHA) are performed in order to validate the new design methodology, according to the Performance-Based Seismic Design (PBSD) approach.
