During the past decades, various analytical macroscopic models of structural walls have been developed for simulating the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) walls. Due to the inherently complicated characteristics of RC walls, macroscopic models that can capture all the important response characteristics with good accuracy and applicability are very challenging to establish. A thorough review of the four main types of mathematical macro models of RC walls, i.e., the vertical-line-element-model, the 2-D shear panel element model, the equivalent truss model and the fiber-based model, is presented to discuss the methodology behind each model and examine the corresponding merits and disadvantages. Suggestions are also made for the further research of the macro modeling of structural walls.

In recent years, a coupled composite shear wall system consisting of steel reinforced concrete (RC) composite wall piers and steel coupling beams has been widely used for lateral force resistance in super high-rise buildings in medium to high seismic zones in China. Research on the seismic behaviour of the coupled composite walls, however, has rarely been conducted. This paper presents the main experimental results of four steel beam RC composite wall subassembly specimens with endplate connections in terms of failure pattern, strength, ductility and energy dissipation. Mathematical macroscopic models are established based on the proposed mechanical and numerical techniques. The simulated load versus displacement skeleton curves and hysteretic loops are obtained and compared to experimental results. The simulation results are found to have good agreement with the experimental data, indicating the applicability of the proposed nonlinear modelling techniques.

Coupled steel plate and reinforced concrete (SPRC) composite shear walls have been widely constructed in the core tube of super tall buildings in seismic regions. However, relevant research progress is far behind the practical application of this coupled composite wall system. Particularly, the current seismic design method does not consider the coupling mechanism and lacks efficiency in the computation of seismic base shear. In this research, the energy balance-based plastic design (EBPD) method is developed and used to design twelve prototype structures considering different structural heights and coupling ratios (CR). With the ABAQUS-based numerical techniques verified by relevant experimental results, all the prototype cases were studied by pushover analysis and nonlinear dynamic analysis to examine the effectiveness of the EBPD method in ensuring satisfactory seismic performance of coupled SPRC composite walls. The results indicate that the coupled SPRC composite walls designed by the EBPD method can satisfy the code requirements on lateral deformation under moderate and rare earthquakes. The analytical average story shear and bending moment distribution patterns have acceptable agreement with the relevant design assumptions. Favorable CR ranges are suggested for the coupled SPRC composite walls with different story numbers to achieve good earthquake-induced deformation characteristics.