Closed‐Form Solutions for the Static Analysis of Multi‐bay Stiffened Coupled Shear Walls: Inclusion of Local Shear Deformation of Walls

ABSTRACT An efficient strategy for controlling lateral displacements, story drifts, and coupling degrees in coupled shear walls is the use of stiffening beams. However, analytical solutions have been limited to specific, simplified cases without generalization, resulting in restricted applicability to single‐bay coupled shear walls while neglecting the local shear deformation mechanism of the walls, a mechanism that enhances the accuracy of classic continuous models. Therefore, using a generalized continuous model—resulting from the series coupling of a classical sandwich beam and a shear beam—this paper presents, for the first time, a closed‐form solution for the static analysis of multi‐bay coupled shear walls with stiffening beams subjected to three standard lateral loading cases: uniform, triangular, and top‐concentrated, incorporating the local shear deformation mechanism of the walls. It is shown that lateral displacement, and story drift can be decomposed into three components: total bending (global + local), total shear (global + local), and interaction between total bending, global shear, and the effect of the stiffening beam. The effect of the stiffening beam does not affect the components associated with total bending and total shear; it only influences the interaction component. The local shear deformation mechanism of the walls is introduced exclusively in the component associated with total shear through a dimensionless parameter . Numerical applications demonstrate that the classic continuous model loses validity and is limited to slender walls, which can be modeled as bending beams, as its application to non‐slender walls tends to underestimate results, compromising structural safety. On the other hand, the introduction of the dimensionless parameter extends the applicability of the continuous model to non‐slender walls, which can be modeled as Timoshenko beams. A rigorous parametric analysis evaluates the accuracy of the proposed solutions, revealing a maximum error of +0.59%, in contrast to the −60.43% reported for the solution available in the literature. The maximum error obtained is negligible, ensuring that the proposed solutions can be safely applied in structural engineering practice.