Published Paper Details:

Structural fuses are sacrificial structural elements that can be added to Reinforced Concrete (RC) systems to reduce the damage under seismic loads. Coupled shear walls system is chosen in this research to be studied while installing steel fuse coupling beams with specific recommendations instead of conventional concrete beams. Many studies investigated the shear behavior of steel beams under shear loading, and others applied lateral loading on coupled shear walls with steel beams. A non-linear finite element analysis is conducted using ABAQUS FE program to verify the modeling of steel fuse beams under shear loading, and Seismostruct FE program is used to verify modeling of global reinforced concrete system under lateral loads based on available experimental results. The numerical results were found reliable to simulate the behavior of verified specimens. Then, a parametric study is conducted using the verified micro and macro modelling techniques through two phases; phase one aims to determine the optimum dimensions for steel fuse coupling beams to enhance its performance in terms of shear-deformation capacity, and energy absorption ensuring shear yielding instead of flexural yielding, while the second phase aims to study the effect of installing steel beams with the design guidelines deduced from phase one instead of conventional RC beams and predict the effect of this procedure on the global behavior of the main system including base shear capacity, ultimate top displacement, and energy dissipation. In conclusion, a specific factor range is identified for steel beams to ensure better shear behavior. Additionally, RC coupled wall systems with steel coupling beams showed better performance in terms of ductility, energy dissipation, and damages level while maintaining similar shear capacity compared to the ordinary systems coupled with RC beams.