Effectiveness of Changing Reinforced Concrete

Shear Wall Location on Multi-storeyed Building

Akshay Bura

Akhila Bolu

Department of Civil Enginnering

BITS Pilani University
email: bura.akshay@gmail.com

Department of Civil Enginnering

BITS Pilani University
email: akhila.bolu@gmail.com

J S Kalyana Rama
Lecturer
Department of Civil Enginnering
BITS Pilani University

Abstract: Shear wall is one of the most commonly used lateral

load resisting in high rise building. Shear wall has high in
plane stiffness and strength which can be used to
simultaneously resist large horizontal load and support gravity
load. The scope of present work is to study the effect of seismic
loading on placement of shear wall in medium rise building at
different alternative location. The residential medium rise
building is analyzed for earthquake force by considering two
type of structural system. i.e. Frame system and Dual system.
Effectiveness of shear wall has been studied with the help of
four different models. Model one is bare frame structural
system and other four models are dual type structural system.
Analysis is carried out by using standard package ETAB. The
comparison of these models for different parameters like Shear
force, Bending Moment, Displacement, Storey Drift and Story
Shear has been presented by replacing column with shear wall.
Keywords: Frame Structure, Shear Wall Location, Structural
System, Muilt-storyed Building,

I.

INTRODUCTION

Reinforced concrete shear walls are used in building to

resist lateral force due to wind and earthquakes. They are
usually provided between column lines, in stair wells, lift
wells, in shafts that house other utilities. Shear wall provide
lateral load resisting by transferring the wind or earthquake
load to foundation. Besides, they impart lateral stiffness to
the system and also carry gravity loads.
Reinforced concrete framed buildings are adequate for
resisting both the vertical and horizontal load. However,
when buildings are tall, beam and column sizes are quite
heavy. So there is lot of congestion at these joint and it is
difficult to place and vibrate concrete at these place and
displacement is quite heavy which induces heavy forces in
member. Shear wall behave like flexural members. They are
usually used in tall building to avoid collapse of buildings.
Shear wall may become imperative from the point of view
of economy and control of lateral deflection. When shear
wall are situated in advantageous positions in the building
they can form an efficient lateral force resisting system.

Columns of course also resist lateral forces, their

contribution depending on their stiffness relative to shear
walls. The object of the analysis for horizontal forces is to
determine to what proportion are the external loads at each
level distributed among shear walls and columns.
Simplified methods of analysis of tall buildings are
required to minimize the analysis cost especially in the
preliminary design stage when the analysis is carried out
and modified several times before the final design. The
available analysis methods are of three types:
(a)Iterative methods
(b)simplified matrix methods
(c) differential equation approaches and continuum
methods.
There are a lot of developments in the proposed methods of
solution.
A simplified stiffness matrix method for analyzing
frames with or without shear walls was given by Ghali and
Neville [1] with only one degree of freedom per floor. The
structure (also called as wide column analogy method) is
composed of two systems connected by a rigid inextensible
link of members at all the floor levels, and the axial
deformation is neglected. The stiffness matrix derived was
as follows.

Where =

12 EI
h 2Gar

G: Shear modulus of elasticity

ar : Effective shear area
B. Stafford Smith and Amal Girgis [2] provided an
alternative to the finite element technique by developing

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
two types of analogous frames for the stress analysis of
shear walls. One analogous frame (see Fig.1a) is similar to
the widely used wide-column analogous frame, except for
the addition of diagonal braces in each module. The
diagonal braces prevent the interference of the bending and
shear stiffnesses, which occur in the ordinary wide-column
analogy, and therefore
allow the more accurate
representation of shear
walls with a high shear to
moment
ratio.
The
second analogous frame
also
includes
horizontally rigid arms
and braces, but the
central column of the
previous frame is omitted
and replaced by a column on one vertical edge and a hinged
link on the other.

H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee[5]. This super element was further

investigated for three-dimensional buildings by Hyun-Su
Kim et al [6]. See Fig. 2 for details.
Dr. Ammar A. Ali et al [7] substituted the shell elements
by the framework method to model the shear walls. Since
the forces and stresses induced are planar, framework model
in extension was convenient but was more sensitive to mesh
size than shell elements. The model consists of four side
beams with axial and flexural rigidity and two diagonal
beams with axial rigidity only.
Unlike the finite element method, the boundary element
method (BEM) requires the discretization of only the
problem boundary. In 2001, Y.F. Rashed [8] applied BEM to
the analysis of building shear walls. Both constant and
quadratic elements were used.
The object of the analysis for horizontal forces is to
determine to what proportion are the external loads at each
level distributed among shear walls and columns. It is
necessary to evaluate the extent of usage of shear walls in a
building with respect to the magnitude of the lateral forces.
In this regard, Anil K Mishra [9] analyzed a small special
moment resisting frame(SMRF) building with and without
shear walls. The study deals with equivalent lateral force
methods along with drift variations and load sharing
capacity. An attempt is made to investigate the difference in
the natural vibration periods between the two systems.
These investigations led to the conclusion that the c/s area,
symmetry and moment of inertia in both directions of rigid
walls and columns should be so chosen such that the shear
walls carry at least 75% of seismic lateral loading and
economically provide resistance against natural calamities
of low cost low height structures.
In this paper, further investigation of effectiveness of
shear walls in midrise buildings against lateral loads (in this
case seismic) is proposed. Along with comparison of SMRF
building with that of dual system (i.e. SMRF buildings with
shear walls), studying response of building with different
reinforced concrete (RC) locations has also been included.
One model for SMRF residential building and four models
for dual type structural system are generated with the help
of ETABS and effectiveness has been checked.

Fig.1a Braced wide-column analogous frame

Javier Encina, Juan C. de la Llera [3] introduced a

simplified building model that included the flexural
contribution of the slabs, and the shear wall cores were
modeled using a wide column analogy that included
warping effects. The model introduced kinematic constraints
to account for the interaction between walls and slabs. The
column properties of the wall include shear deformations as
a Timoshenko beam, and a Saint-Venant torsional behavior.
The concept of the "Carry-over moments matrix" was
introduced by Ma'az Siddig Ibrahim and Abdel Rahman
Elzubair Mohamed [4]. The moments are transformed in
groups from one level to the subsequent level. The method
is based on the concept of the direct moment distribution.
Fig. 2 Diagram showing SUPER ELEMENT modeling

II.

BUILDING STRUCTURE AND LOAD DATA

1) Building Geometry:
1) Number of stories
2) Height of each story
3) Height of Building
4) Depth Of foundation
2) Structural Element Sizes:
1) Interior column
2) Side column
3) Corner column
4) Beam

To reduce the fine mesh finite element models for an

accurate analysis shear walls with openings, a super element
was developed using the matrix condensation technique by

:
:
:
:
:
:
:
:

12 stories(G+11).
3.1m.
38.7 m.
1.5 m.
500mm x 500mm
300mm x600mm
500mm x500mm
300mm x 450mm

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
5) Thickness of slab
:
6) Thickness of Shear wall :
3) Material Properties:
1) Concrete Grade
2) Steel Grade

1) Model I - SMRF Building without Shear walls.

150 mm
230 mm

:
:

Model 1 is a SMRF building modeled without shear

walls for resisting lateral forces. The ETABS model is
shown in Fig.3.

M20
Fe415

4) Load Data
1) Live Load:
a) Floor Load
: 3 KN/m2
2) Dead Load:
a) Self Weight
: 25 KN/m3
b) Floor Finish
: 1 KN/m2
3) Seismic Load Parameters:
a) Seismic Zone Factor(Z)
:
b) Response Reduction Factor(R) :
c) Importance Factor(I)
:
d) Soil Condition (Sa/G)
:

III (0.16)
5
1
Medium(II)

e)

Height Of Building

: 38.7m

f)

Time Period In X Dir

: 0.832sec

g) Time Period In Y Dir

: 0.707sec

h) Seismic Base Shear Calculations :

Ah

Z * I * Sa / g
2* R

&

Vb = Ah*W

Where Ah: Horizontal Seismic coeff

Vb : Design Base Shear
The horizontal seismic coefficient (Ah) for all the
models was considered 0.0262 as per the given
parameters.
III.

Fig. 3 Model 1

FEM MODELLING IN ETABS

2) Model II SMRF Building with U-Shaped Shear Walls

Building is modeled using stander package ETABS.

Beams and columns are modeled as two noded beam
elements with six DOF at each node. Shear wall are
modeled using shell element. Equivalent static analysis
or linear static analysis is performed on models. Based
on analysis result, parameters such as bending moment,
shear force in column, displacement, storey drift and
storey shear are compared for each model.

Model 2 is a SMRF building modeled with U-Shaped

shear walls at centre of the length and width of structure
for resisting lateral forces. The ETABS model is shown
in Fig.4.

The following five models have been considered with

different conditions as shown in figure below. Structural
element sizes and loading have been kept constant for
comparative study.

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus

Fig. 4 Model 2
Fig. 6 Model 4

Model V SMRF Building with Straight Shear Walls

3) Model III SMRF Building with L-Shaped Shear Walls

Model 5 is a SMRF building modeled with central

core of shear walls centre of the structure for resisting
lateral forces. The ETABS model is shown in Fig.7.

Model 3 is a SMRF building modeled with L-Shaped

shear walls at corners of structure for resisting lateral
forces. The ETABS model is shown in Fig.5.

Fig.5 Model 3
Fig.7 Model 5

IV.

Model IV SMRF Building with L-Shaped Shear Walls

RESULTS AND COMPARISONS

The response of the five type of structures to lateral

loading are compared on following parameters, viz,
Base Shears
Lateral Displacement
Storey Drift
Bending Moments In Columns
Shear Forces In Columns

Model 4 is a SMRF building modeled with L-Shaped

shear walls at corners of structure for resisting lateral
forces. The ETABS model is shown in Fig.6.

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
1) Base Shears:
The base shears for all the models were almost the
same for all the models. As the only changing parameter
was seismic weight, it was expected. The chart for variation
of seismic weight is shown in Fig. 8

3) Storey Drift:
Storey Drifts of models for EQX and EQY direction at
each floor level is shown in Fig. 11. & 12.
It was observed that compared to dual system, SMRF
building without shear walls had very large storey drifts in
both the directions. Similar to displacements, Model 3 was
the most efficient to arrest the drifts against lateral loads.

Fig. 8 Base shears

2) Lateral Displacement:
Lateral displacement of models for Earthquake in Xdirection load (EQX) and Earthquake in Y-direction load
(EQY) direction at each floor level is shown in Fig. 9. & 10.
It was observed that compared to dual system, SMRF
building without shear walls had very large displacements in
both the directions. Model 3 was the most efficient to arrest
the displacements against lateral loads.

Fig. 11 Storey Drift Along X-Dir for EQX

Fig. 9 Displacement Along X-Dir for EQX

Fig. 12 Storey Drift Along X-Dir for EQY

4) Bending Moments In Columns:
The variation of bending moments of beams and
columns for different models is shown in the following
figures. It was observed that bending moments in Line
elements i.e. columns and beams reduced considerably after
introduction of shear walls. The reduction was in the range
of 50 to 70% for beams and columns. Also as the extent of
shear walls reduced, bending moments increased gradually.

Fig. 10 Displacement Along X-Dir for EQY

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus

Fig. 13 Bending moments in columns of model I

Fig.17 Bending moments in columns of model V

Fig:14 Bending moments in column of model II

5) Shear Forces Taken By Columns And Shear Walls:

The variation of percentage of shear taken by columns
and shear walls in all models is shown in the fig. 18. It was
observed that increasing the extent of shear walls made a
significant impact in the ratio of percentage. Although
increasing length of shear walls is desirable , special care
has to be taken care in case of core shear wall where the
extent is less.

Fig:15 Bending moments in column of model III

Fig.18 The percentage of shear taken by column and shear walls

V.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE SCOPE

From above results, the following conclusions can be

made regarding effectiveness of rc wall location in a
structure.

Fig:16 Bending moments in columns of model IV

Akshay Bura, Akhila Bolu / Civil Engineering Dept, BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus
1) Iit is clear that shear wall frame interaction systems are
very effective in resisting lateral forces induced by
earthquake.
2) Placing shear wall away from center of gravity resulted
in increase in the most of the members forces. So shear
walls should be coinciding with the centroid of the
building.
3) The study indicates the significant effect on shear force
and bending moment of column at different levels of the
building by shifting the shear wall location.
4) Also placing of shear walls has a crucial role in
distribution of lateral forces .
Buildings with shear walls are hence economical
when lateral forces are high. The above study can also
be extended to dynamic analysis of stuctures subjected
to response spectra. Also effect of RC walls on the
fundamental time period and modal mass participation
factors can also be investigated.
Also, the severity of lateral loading in this case was
same for all models. Further investigations can be
carried out as to how seismic behavior changes for
different shear wall locations for different type of
seismic parameters.

Acknowledgment
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of
Kalyana Rama for his guidance throughout the project.

References
[1]
[2]
[3]

Ghali, A. and Neville A, Structural Analysis A Unified Classical

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B. Stafford Smith and Amal Girgis, Simple Analogous Frames For
Shear Wall Analysis, ASCE,1984.
Javier Encina, Juan C. de la Llera, A simplified model for the
analysis of free plan buildings using a wide-column model,

Engineering Structures 56 (2013) 738748,2013.

[4]

[5]
[6]

[7]

[8]
[9]

[10]

Ma'az Siddig Ibrahim and Abdel Rahman Elzubair Mohamed,

Analysis of Shear Wall Structures using the Moment Transformation
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super elements, Engineering Structures 25 (2003).
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