Reformulation of the frame method

Abstract

Among design engineers, the frame method is popular for the analysis of coupled wall-frame buildings. However, there are several problems with it. Firstly, shear deformation of the walls is either totally neglected or inappropriately allowed for. Secondly, the rotational degrees of freedom at the beam-wall joints have been mistaken as the rotations of the horizontal rigid arms, leading to incompatibility between the beam and wall elements. Thirdly, there is also the problem of artificial flexure due to discrete modelling of the continuous connection between adjacent wall units. An attempt to solve these problems was made by the Author in a previous paper; and a further investigation is carried out here. It is found that, to overcome these problems, substantial reformulation of the frame method is necessary. The reformulation leads to a new solid wall element which is really a strain-based finite element with rotational degrees of freedom. Numerical examples are given for comparing with other theoretical and experimental results.