Mao Cristian Pinto‐Cruz
ABSTRACT Horizontal deflection, interstory drift, additional axial force, and coupling ratio are key parameters that govern both the local and global performance, as well as the structural design of coupled shear walls. Their accurate calculation is essential for preliminary design and rapid performance assessment. However, the classical sandwich beam, widely used in the literature, does not account for the local shear deformation mechanism of walls, a significant factor influencing the accuracy and precision of the analysis. To address this limitation, this paper introduces, for the first time, new closed‐form solutions for the precise calculation of these key parameters, utilizing a novel generalized continuous model. The continuous model incorporates the novel additional deformation mechanism due to local shear deformation of the walls, by coupling the classical sandwich beam and the shear beam in series. The inclusion of this new mechanism allows the decoupled differential equation and its boundary conditions established in previous studies to be generalized. Horizontal deflection and interstory drift are decomposed into three distinct components: bending, shear, and interaction. By incorporating the new deformation mechanism, the analytical expressions proposed in the literature are corrected. The applicability of the proposed analytical expressions extends to coupled shear walls with one or multiple bays, including both symmetric and asymmetric configurations. Finally, a comprehensive validation of the proposed expressions is conducted alongside a rigorous parametric analysis to broaden the applicability range of classical continuous models and assess the accuracy of the proposed analytical expressions. The results are promising, with errors on the order of +3.30% and −4.50% in the calculation of horizontal deflection and additional axial force, respectively.