The objective of this course is to assist a licensed design professional, practicing structural engineers, forensic structural engineers, consulting engineers, building officials,  educators, students and/or a licensed general contractor to deeply know, and understand the seismic analysis, and design of  RC  ductile coupled shear wall system according to ACI 318-19 and ASCE/SEI 7-22 Codes.  The importance of this course also lies in the fact that the new current version of ASCE/SEI 7-22 code   describes this system as a distinct seismic force-resisting system compared to others ones. Thus, the discussion in this course focuses not on just coupled walls but ductile coupled walls consisting of ductile shear walls and ductile coupling beams.  Unfortunately, there are not a sufficient number of references dealing with this topic, so the course was designed to be an important guide for the structural engineers those working in this field. A ductile coupled wall system of reinforced concrete is now defined in ACI 318-19 (ACI, 2019), and it is recognized as a distinct seismic force-resisting systems in ASCE/SEI 7-22 Table 12.2-1, Design Coefficients and Factors for Seismic Force-Resisting Systems. Three line items have been added to the table, featuring the ductile coupled wall system of reinforced concrete. The line items are under: A. Bearing Wall Systems, B. Building Frame Systems, and D. Dual Systems with Special Moment Frames. R = 8, d = 8, and Ω0 = 2.5 are the design coefficients in all the line items. The height limits are the same as for corresponding uncoupled isolated wall systems. Several important changes made in ACI 318-19 for the design and detailing of special structural walls were implemented in the design of prototypes for the FEMA P695 study supporting the above values.

Learning Objectives

• Gaining a general overview of the ductile coupled structural (shear) wall system in ACI 318-19 Code
• Gaining a general overview of the ductile coupled structural (shear) wall system in ASCE/SEI 7-22 Code
• Gaining a general overview of the ductile coupled structural (shear) wall system in FEMA P695
• Gaining a general overview of the all expected failure modes of ductile coupled structural (shear) wall system
• Showing the detailed design example (step by step ) of a special reinforced concrete ductile coupled wall based on ASCE/SEI 7-22 and ACI 318-19 codes.