Design Methodology of Diagonally Reinforced Concrete Coupling Beams

The main lateral force resisting system of buildings is shear walls. Reinforced concrete coupling beams usually connect these shear walls. This research summarizes the design procedures of reinforced concrete coupling beams. Although there are many aspects to the analysis of a coupled wall system, this paper focuses on the ACI 318 design of the reinforced concrete coupling beam as an individual member and uses several simplifying assumptions to illustrate an efficient proposed process for the design. The assumption of the proposed procedure relates the shear force with the plastic moment capacity of the coupling beam. A typical building dimension is considered, and a coupling beam with an aspect ratio of1.6 is designed as a diagonally reinforced coupling beam (DRCB) in accordance with ACI318. The results show that the DRCB can be simply designed based on the moment capacity of the coupling beam instead of the current iterative procedure of the ASCE/ASI7-22, in which horizontal forces are elastically distributed that are related to the stiffness of the structural members. The proposed procedure was evaluated using ETABS software and presented close results.