Dynamic analysis of non-planar coupled shear walls

In this thesis, the dynamic analysis of non-planar coupled shear walls with any number of stiffening beams, having flexible beam-wall connections and resting on rigid foundations has been carried out. The change of wall cross-section and the heights of the stories and connecting beams from region to region along the height are taken into consideration as well. In the analysis, Vlasov?s theory of thin-walled beams and Continuous Connection Method (CCM) have been employed to find the stiffness matrix of the system. For this purpose, the connecting beams have been replaced by an equivalent layered medium and unit forces have been applied in the directions of the degrees of freedom to find the displacements of the system corresponding to each of them. The warping of the cross-sections of the piers due to their twist, as well as their bending, has been considered in obtaining the displacements. The system mass matrix has been found in the form of lumped masses at the heights where the unit forces have been applied. Following the free vibration analysis, uncoupled stiffness, damping and mass matrices have been found employing the mode superposition method. A time-history analysis has been carried out using Newmark numerical integration method to find the system displacement vector for every time step. Finally, a computer program has been prepared in Fortran language and various examples have been solved. The results have been verified via comparisons with those of the SAP2000 structural analysis program.