THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TALL AND SPECIAL BUILDINGS

Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303

Published online 8 July 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tal). DOI: 10.1002/tal.1303

Equivalent frame analysis for effective wall width of nonplanar

beamwall connections

Hamdolah Behnam1, J. S. Kuang1*, and Qunxian Huang2

1
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
2
College of Civil Engineering, Huaqiao University, Xiamen, China

SUMMARY
Shear wallframe structural systems are the most commonly used structural forms in tall buildings. In this
structural system, many nonplanar beamwall connections are formed by frame beams connecting to a shear
wall in their out-of-plane direction. Few studies on nonplanar beamwall joints have been conducted. This
paper presents an investigation of the mechanical performance of nonplanar beamwall joints based on the
equivalent frame model assumptions. The concept of the effective wall width is introduced, and an analyt-
ical model is derived by considering the rotational stiffness of a beamwall joint. The proposed effective
wall width model is veried by experiments and nite element analyses. Comparison of the proposed model
with the existing models shows that all the key design variables that affect the effective wall width in non-
planar beamwall connections, in particular the cross-sectional dimensions of beams and shear walls, have
been appropriately included in deriving the proposed model based on structural mechanics. The applicabil-
ity and accuracy are demonstrated by a design example. It is shown that the proposed analytical model of the
effective wall width for nonplanar beamwall connections provides a simple and effective, yet accurate,
means of analysis for the coupling effect of nonplanar coupling beams in tall buildings. Copyright
2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 21 December 2015; Revised 18 May 2016; Accepted 11 June 2016

KEY WORDS: nonplanar beamwall connection; effective wall width; equivalent frame analysis; shear wallframe
structure; tall building; reinforced concrete

1. INTRODUCTION

Prohibitive land prices and high population densities in large cities, such as Hong Kong, create an in-
creasing demand for tall buildings. Under the action of lateral loads, tall building structures are sub-
jected to signicant bending moments and shear forces because of the large structural masses,
heights and surface area. Therefore, an effective lateral load resisting structural system is essential.
Shear wallframe structural systems incorporating a reinforced concrete (RC) core are one of the most
commonly used structural forms for the tall buildings. Advantages of adopting such a structural system
are in providing effective resistance to the lateral and gravity loads with adequate lateral stability and
allowing relatively easier construction due to the straight-forward reinforcing details in shear walls
(Park et al., 2014). In such structures, many beamwall joints are formed by frame beams, which
are connected to a shear wall. Depending on the layout of a wallframe building, these connections
can be coplanar or nonplanar, as shown in Figure 1.
Many research projects have been carried out with the main objective of assessing the coupling ef-
fect of coplanar beams subjected to lateral loads (Chan and Kuang, 1988; Kuang et al., 1991; Stafford

*Correspondence to: J. S. Kuang, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

E-mail: cejkuang@ust.hk

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2 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

Figure 1. (a) Coplanar coupling beams, (b) core wall with coplanar coupling beams, (c) core wall with
nonplanar coupling beams, (d) Z-shaped shear wall pierced with openings and (e) beam connected to
shear wall.

Smith and Coull, 1991; Kwan, 1993; Choi et al., 2007; Bozdogan, 2009; Kuang and Huang, 2011).
According to these studies, coupling beams have the signicant effect on the seismic performance
of shear wallframe structure in terms of stiffness, strength and energy dissipation capacity. In addi-
tion, advanced modelling techniques were developed to model and analyse the response of shear walls,
where the decoupled exural and shear responses or the effect of shearexure interactions are consid-
ered (Mergos and Beyer, 2014). However, only a few studies have been conducted on the nonplanar
beamwall connection problem.
The in-plane stiffness of shear walls is much greater than the corresponding out-of-plane stiffness
because of the relatively larger width of the wall when compared with the thickness. Therefore, design
codes of practice usually ignore the out-of-plane bending stiffness of shear walls and treat the nonpla-
nar beamwall connection as a hinge. Assuming that RC nonplanar beamwall connections act as
hinges, the nonplanar coupling beams are designed as simply supported beams by ignoring the possi-
ble out-of-plane bending of walls in reinforcement detailing. Under these assumptions, the lateral stiff-
ness of the structure is underestimated, and serious cracks may be formed around the joint because of
the excessive out-of-plane deformation of the wall (Chen et al., 2011).
The theoretical and experimental investigations by Roberts and Achour (1990) showed that the cou-
pling effect of nonplanar coupling beams can enhance the torsional stiffness of a core wall. The result
of the parametric study using nite element analysis (Kwan and Chan, 2000) showed that only a ver-
tical strip of the wall near the joint is effective in resisting the out-of-plane bending moment, while the
remaining part of the wall does not contribute much to the rotational stiffness of the joint. Based on this
observation, they assumed that the out-of-plane bending moment acting from the nonplanar coupling
beam is resisted by a vertical strip of the wall, which is known as the effective wall width. By using
linear regression analysis, a simple formula for estimating the effective wall width (be) is proposed,

be bb 0:34hw (1)

where bb is the coupling beam width and hw is the shear wall height.

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 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 3 of 17

Yang et al. (2005) studied the strength, ductility and the failure mode of RC nonplanar beamwall
joints using six specimens under low reversed cyclic loading tests. Based on linear regression analysis,
a formula for determining the effective width (be) of wall is derived, which is dependent upon the beam
width (bb), beam depth (hb) and wall thickness (t), and given by

be 1:15bb 0:6hb t (2)

Lin and Shi (2010) investigated the mechanical performance of shear walls subjected to nonplanar
bending moments based on the theory of orthotropic elastic thin plates. Using linear regression anal-
ysis, they suggested a formula for calculating the effective wall width,

be 1:85hb 0:25hw (3)

Chen et al. (2011) investigated the behaviour of beamwall joints based on the classical plate the-
ory. They developed an expression for the effective width using the rotational stiffness of the joint
and total strain energy. The results of the analytical study showed that the reinforcement ratio in the
two perpendicular directions of the shear wall does not have a signicant inuence on the effective
width of the shear wall. They then proposed the calculation of the effective wall width, using nonlinear
regression analysis between the most inuential design variables, given by

0:07
bb
be 1:97hb 0:28hw (4)
hb

It can be seen that all of these studies were conducted based on either linear or nonlinear regression
analysis to obtain a simplied expression of the effective width for beamwall joints. However, such
simplications introduce some limitations, because
(1) These analytical/numerical models were derived only based on a limited amount of data in specic
ranges; thus, they may not be applicable for the structural parameters that are not covered in the
regression analysis but have a signicant effect on the structural behaviour of beamwall
connections.
(2) These regression analyses were not correctly performed in accordance with the three major selec-
tion conditions of regression analysis, which include the suitable independent variables, the correct
form of regression function and the correct form of stochastic error terms
Because the structural design parameters are interrelated, the prediction of the correct form and in-
dependent variables is extremely difcult and needs engineering judgement. As it can be seen from all
the previous studies, only some different parameters were considered to estimate the effective width of
the shear wall. Therefore, it is important, and there is a need to develop a simple and efcient analytical
model to quantify the inuence of each individual key variable on the effective width of the nonplanar
beamwall connections.
According to the physical similarity between the slab-column connections and the nonplanar beam
wall connections, certain solutions of the slab-column connection under lateral loading can be applied
to the nonplanar beamwall joints (Chen et al., 2011), where the equivalent frame model (Pecknold,
1975; Wong and Coull, 1980; Farhey et al., 1992; Kim and Lee, 2005) and the unbalanced bending
moment (Long et al., 1978; Alexander and Simmonds, 2003; Park and Choi, 2007; Choi et al.,
2014) are applicable.
To overcome the shortcomings in the past research work, an analytical method of analysis based on
the equivalent frame assumption (Vanderbilt, 1979; Moehle, 1988; Luo and Durrani, 1995; Nielsen
and Hoang, 2010; MacGregor and Wight, 2005) is adopted in deriving the effective width of shear
walls. The equivalent frame model has been widely recognized and implemented in different codes

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4 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

of practice as a simplied practical approach for design and evaluation of the structural strength and
stiffness of slab-column connections (Luo and Durrani, 1995; Hwang and Moehle, 2000; MacGregor
and Wight, 2005), beamwall connections (Kwan and Chan, 2000; Lin and Shi, 2010; Marques and
Horowitz, 2013) and wide beamcolumn connections (Benavent-Climent, 2007; Benavent-Climent
et al., 2009, 2010). The proposed effective wall width model considers the effect of torsion and exure
around the joint and simulates different practical cases. The proposed effective width model is veried
by comparing with the results of the prediction of the tangential stiffness of the available experiments.
A parametric study is carried out, combining the inuences of the shear wall width and height, and the
beam width and depth to highlight the inuence of each parameter. Finally, a numerical example is
given to illustrate the proposed model application in the design of reinforced concrete beamwall con-
nections in tall buildings.

2. ANALYTICAL MODEL

A typical nonplanar beamwall connection with a frame beam of size bb hb L is perpendicularly

connected to a shear wall of size bw hw t in its out-of-plane direction, as shown in Figure 2(a). Using
the same simplication adopted by Kwan and Chan (2000), Lin and Shi (2010) and Chen et al. (2011),
it is assumed that under the external loading, the nonplanar beamwall connection deforms with a
deected shape at the wall line similar to that produced in conventional rigidly jointed frame, where
points of contra-exure generally occur in both beam and column segments. The upper and lower
boundaries of the wall are hinged, while the restraints on other edges are considered to be variable.
The proposed model is presented schematically in Figure 2(b), in which the shear wall with a width
of bw = bb + 2bo is subdivided into three ctitious parallel elements. One of them, representing the in-
side portion, is connected directly to the joint with the width equal to the beam width (bb). The other
two elements, representing the outside portion, with the width equal to the outside wall width (bo),
are connected to the joint through torsional springs that characterize the torsional behaviour of the tor-
sional member. As shown in Figure 2(b), the beam appears as a single element directly connected to

Figure 2. (a) A typical beamwall joint; (b) proposed analytical model.

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
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 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 5 of 17

the joint. In this study, a wall strip with the width of hb is treated as the torsional member. Such sim-
plications are also adopted in modelling slab-column connections (Hwang and Moehle, 2000; Park
and Gamble, 2000), wide beamcolumn connections (Benavent-Climent, 2007) and nonplanar
beamwall connections (Marques and Horowitz, 2013; Kwan and Chan, 2000; Lin and Shi, 2010).
Considering the slab contribution on the shear wall in resisting the out-of-plane deformation, the slab
effect is neglected.

2.1. Formulation
When the tip of the beam connected to the shear wall is subjected to a vertical load, the nonplanar
beamwall joint rotates, thereby causing out-of-plane bending of the inside portion, and twisting of
the torsional member which causes out-of-plane bending in the outside wall portions. The total rota-
tional stiffness of the nonplanar beamwall connection can be evaluated by

K total K i 2K o (5)

where Ki is the inside portion stiffness and Ko denotes for the stiffness of both the outside portion and
the torsional member. For inside portion elements, the rotational stiffness Ki can be found based on
structural mechanics for a given wall that is hinged at both ends and is subjected to a concentrated mo-
ment at the middle, given by

12EI i h2w
Ki (6)
h w  h b 3

where E is the elastic modulus of the concrete, hw is the wall height, hb is the beam depth and Ii = bbt3/
12 is the second moment of area of the wall with width of bb. Because the outside wall rotational stiff-
ness Kow and torsional element stiffness Kts act as series springs, the stiffness Ko can be expressed as

1 1 1
(7)
K o K ow K ts

The outside wall rotational stiffness Kow can be found from

12EI o h2w
K ow (8)
hw  hb 3

where Io = bot3/12 is the second moment of area of the outside portion with a width of bo, as shown in
Figure 2(a). The physical effect of putting torsional springs in series with a exural member is to
soften or reduce the stiffness of the exural member.

2.2. Torsional member stiffness

For the torsional member, the associated torsional stiffness Kts can be estimated according to the equiv-
alent frame model (Vanderbilt, 1979; MacGregor and Wight, 2005; Marques and Horowitz, 2013), as
shown in Figure 3. Figure 3(b) shows the linear distribution of a unit twisting moment over a width of
bw in which the maximum value of the torsional moment at the centre of the joints is such as to provide
a unit area under the diagram. Figure 3(c) and (d) show the resulting twisting moment in the torsional
member and the corresponding unit rotation diagram, respectively.

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6 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

Figure 3. (a) Beam connected to shear wall; (b) torsional moment applied to the member; (c) torsional
moment diagram in torsional member; (d) derivative of rotation along the member.

The average rotation for only one of the two arms of the torsional member is taken as one-third of
the rotation at its end, and the associated torsional stiffness is taken as the applied torque (0.5) divided
by this rotation. The total torsional stiffness Kts is

EC
K ts  3 (9)
b
bw
9 1  bwb

where C is the torsional constant of the transverse beam, which can be estimated (Kwan and Chan,
2000) by

3
hb t
C (10)
3

By substituting Kow and Kts in Equation (7), the outside portion stiffness (Ko) can be calculated.
Hence, the total stiffness of the shear wall can be determined using Equation (5).

2.3. Equivalence principle based on joint rotational stiffness

It is assumed that the rotational stiffness of beamcolumn joints of the equivalent frame is equal to the total
rotational stiffness of the nonplanar beamwall joint. The rotational stiffness of the given ctitious vertical
column, hinged at both ends and subjected to a concentrated moment at the centre, can be expressed by

12EI e h2w
Ke (11)
hw  hb 3

where Ie = bet3/12 is the second moment of area of the effective width (be). By equating and simplifying Kt
and Ke, the effective wall width of beamwall connections is determined by

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
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 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 7 of 17

1
be bb  2  3 2bo (12)
bw bb
1 3h
bo
b
hw
bw hw hb

Equation (12) shows that the effective width of shear walls is a function of several design variables,
including the beam cross-sectional dimension and shear wall width, height and thickness. In the fol-
lowing sections, a parametric study is carried out to elucidate more information about the geometrical
effect of the different combinations of the shear walls and beams on the effective width.

3. PARAMETRIC STUDIES OF EFFECTIVE WALL WIDTH

In the analysis, it is useful to assume that an effective width of shear wall acts as a column to resist the
out-of-plane bending moment from the beam. Figure 4 shows the variation of the effective width
against the structural parameters, including wall width, storey height, beam width and wall thickness.
It can be seen from Figure 4 that (a) if the wall width increases, the effective width gradually de-
creases; (b) as the storey height increases, the equivalent width increases; (c) as the beam width in-
creases, the equivalent width increases; (d) as the wall thickness increases, the effective width of the
wall remained constant; and (e) as the beam depth increases, the equivalent width increases in all cases.
These results are in accordance with the ndings of Lin and Shi (2010) and Chen et al. (2011).

Figure 4. Effective all width as a function of design variables (bw = hw = 4500 mm, bb = 300 mm,
t = 200 mm): (a) effect of wall width; (b) effect of wall width; (c) effect of beam width; (d) effect of
wall thickness.

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8 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

4. COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT MODELS

In this section, comparisons are made between various simplied formulas, including Kwan and Chan
(2000), Yang et al. (2005), Lin and Shi (2010), Chen et al. (2011) and the proposed formula Equation
(12). The effective wall widths obtained from the present study and other investigations are plotted and
presented in Figures. 59, where it is seen that only one variable is changed, while the others are kept
constant.
It is seen from Figure 5 that with a constant beam width and an increase in the relative beam depth,
the effective wall width ratio dened by be/bw is increased. This behaviour can be explained by the fact
that the part of the wall within the beamwall interface area is stiffened by the beam framed into it;
thus, a greater beam depth would lead to a higher rotational stiffness and larger effective width. How-
ever, the increasing rate of the effective width by proposed model (Equation (12)) gradually decreases
when the beam depth becomes larger. It is also shown from Figure 5 that the effective width given by
Kwan and Chan (2000) (Equation (1)) remains constant with beam depth, while the effective width
presented by Lin and Shi (2010) (Equation (3)) and Chen et al. (2011) (Equation (4)) becomes a nearly

Figure 5. Comparison of effective wall width be vs beam depth hb (bw = 4500 mm, hw = 4500 mm,
bb = 300 mm, t = 200 mm).

Figure 6. Comparison of effective wall width be vs beam width bb (bw = 4500 mm, hw = 4500 mm,
hb = 450 mm, t = 200 mm).

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 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 9 of 17

Figure 7. Comparison of effective wall width be vs wall height hw (bw = 4500 mm, hb = 450 mm,
bb = 300 mm, t = 200 mm).

Figure 8. Comparison of effective wall width be vs wall thickness t (hw = 4500 mm, hb = 450 mm,
bb = 300 mm).

straight line. The predictions by the models of Chen et al. (2011) and Lin and Shi (2010) indicate
larger values for effective width when compared with the proposed model and the model of Kwan
and Chan (2000). For instance, at the hb/bw ratio of 0.133 (bb = 300 mm, hb = 600 mm), the be/bw ratio
obtained by the models of Chen et al. (2011)and Lin and Shi (2010), the proposed model and models
of Kwan and Chan (2000) and Yang et al. (2005) are 0.52, 0.5, 0.45, 0.4 and 0.2, respectively. The
main reason for this discrepancy is that both the beam and the wall were assumed to be exural in
the studies by Lin and Shi (2010) and Chen et al. (2011), but the joint is considered to be rigid in both
the proposed model and Kwan and Chans investigation. As a rigid arm is introduced in the ctitious
column, the equivalent width is reduced (Lin and Shi, 2010).
In Figure 6, it is seen that the effective width increases with the increase in the relative beam width by
keeping the relative beam depth constant. The similar increasing trend has also been shown by Kwan
and Chan (2000), Yang et al. (2005) and Chen et al. (2011). Comparisons of the results from the differ-
ent models indicate that the increasing rate in the proposed effective width model is slightly larger than
others. This can be explained by the fact that increasing the beam width in a constant wall width has a
direct increasing effect on both parts of the proposed effective width, as shown in Equation (12). As an
extreme case, if the beam width is taken equal to the wall width (bb = bw), the second term in Equation

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10 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

Figure 9. Comparison of effective wall width be vs wall width bw (hw = 4500 mm, hb = 450 mm,
bb = 300 mm, t = 200 mm).

(12) will be equal to zero and then the effective width becomes wall width (be = bw). The exact expres-
sions for the effective width proposed by Lin and Shi (2010) demonstrated that as the beam width in-
creased, the equivalent width also increased. However, they found that the inuence of the beam
width is smaller than the effect of beam depth and storey height. Thus, in order to derive the simplied
version for the effective width equation (Equation (3)), they only considered the storey height and beam
depth as major parameters, and the effective width became independent of the beam width.
Figure 7 shows that the effective width increases with the increase of wall height with the exception
of the model of Yang et al. (2005), in which the effective wall width remains constant. Figure 8 shows
that the effective width of the shear wall is remained constant by increasing the wall thickness. A lack
of consideration of the storey height and wall width may be the major reason causing the largest dif-
ference between the model of Yang et al. and other predictions.
Figures 9 show the major differences of effective wall width be versus wall width bw between pro-
posed model and other models. According to the previous models, the effective width of the shear wall
remains constant by increasing the wall width. However, it is seen from Figure 9 that the effective wall
width predicted by the proposed model gradually decreases as the wall width increases. In the existing
simplied models, because the reduction of the effective wall width was negligible, no effect of the
wall thickness and wall width on the effective wall width has been assumed. Such simplication in fact
helped to derive the simplied formulas using linear regression analysis.
It has been seen that the results of effective width from the proposed method of analysis have
shown very good agreement with those from Kwan and Chan (2000), Lin and Shi (2010), and Chen
et al. (2011) for a wide range of practical wall and beam dimensions except those from Yang et al.
(2005). The equivalent width obtained in this study is somewhat larger than that of Yang et al.
(2005) investigation. No consideration of the storey height and wall width in the model of Yang
et al. (2005) may be the major reason that leads the smallest effective width.
Based on the proposed analytical model, the effective wall width is independent of the beam length,
which is in agreement with other researchers ndings. This is expected because the rotational stiff-
ness of nonplanar beamwall connections depends only on the out-of-plane bending stiffness of the
wall, and the length of the beam should have no effect on the wall stiffness. The proposed model con-
siders the major structural parameters that affect the effective width of shear walls, including beam
width and depth and wall width and height. However, the previous models only considered some
of these parameters. For instance, Kwan and Chan (2000) only considered the beam width and wall
height as the major parameters. Yang et al. (2005) used the beam width, beam depth and wall thick-
ness as the most critical parameters. While Lin and Shi (2010) regarded the beam depth and wall
height, Chen et al. (2011) assumed the beam width and depth and wall height as most inuential
parameters.

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 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 11 of 17

5. COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The results of the prediction for tangential stiffness of the nonplanar beamwall connections based on
the proposed effective wall width model and the experimental study (Chen et al., 2011) are compared.
In the experimental study, reversed cyclic load tests of four nonplanar beamwall joint specimens were
conducted, with the same dimensions and different reinforcement details in longitudinal direction of
the wall, to investigate failure modes, ductility, hysteretic response and energy dissipation capacity.
Dimensions of the specimens were 300 450 2032 mm for beam width, depth and length, respec-
tively, and 1500 2000 160 mm for the wall width, height and thickness. The main reinforcement de-
tails of these specimens are summarised in Table 1.
The cylindrical compressive strength of the concrete, fc, in the experimental work measured to be
31.7, 33.7, 24.7 and 30.9 MPa for specimens J1 to J4, respectively. The module of elasticity, Ec,
and tensile strength, fct, were calculated by ACI 318 (2014) recommendations:

p
E c 4700 f c (13a)

p
f ct 0:33 f c (13b)

Tangent stiffness K0 = P/ is introduced where P is the load transversely applied at the beam tip and
is the transverse displacement of the beam tip. Based on the structural engineering principle, the
transverse displacement of the beam tip depends on three factors including the beam bending deforma-
tion, shearing deformation and rotation of the beamcolumn joint. Thus, the transverse displacement is
dened by

Pl 3 Pl
k l (14)
3EI GA

where l, A and I are the length, area of cross-section and second moment of area of the beam, respec-
tively; k and G are the and cross-section shape factor and shear modulus, respectively. An effective
wall width of 1115 mm is obtained from the proposed model (Equation (12)) for each of specimens.
By neglecting shearing deformation, the values of tangent stiffness of specimens are obtained theoret-
ically and compared with the experimental results and presented in Table 2.
Table 2 shows that the values of maximum stiffness, which was predicted by the proposed effective
all width model, are consistently within +/14% of the experimentally determined ones. It is found
that the tangent stiffness based on the stiffness equivalence in this study shows very good agreement
with the experimental results.

Table 1. Reinforcement details (Chen et al., 2011)

Beam Fictitious column
Width bc
Specimen longitudinal stirrup Wall (two-way mat) (mm) longitudinal stirrup
J1 2 T25 + 1 T28 T8@100 T6@150 300 4 T25 T6@150
J2 2 T25 + 1 T28 T8@100 T6@150 380 2 T22 + 4 T18 T6@150
J3 2 T25 + 1 T28 T8@100 T6@150 460 6 T18 T6@150
J4 2 T25 + 1 T28 T8@100 T6@150 620 7 T14 T6@150
Note: bc is the width of a ctitious column where the additional reinforcement is provided.

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12 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

Table 2. Tangent stiffness of specimens.

Ke Ktan Ktan,exp (Ktan-Ktan,exp)
Specimens be (mm) (1011 N/mm) (104 N/mm) (104 N/mm) /K0 (%)
J1 1115 1.371 1.307 1.145 12.4
J2 1115 1.414 1.347 1.163 13.7
J3 1115 1.210 1.154 1.176 1.91
J4 1115 1.356 1.292 1.210 6.40

6. NUMERICAL ANALYSIS

The proposed effective width model provides a simple and accurate approach to predict the effective
wall width. In this section, solid element model is adopted to analyse the out-of-plane deformation
of the shear wall. Accordingly, a nite element model (FEM) is created using ABAQUS (Hibbitt
et al., 2011). For predicting the lateral stiffness, the geometrical and material parameters and condi-
tions of the specimens tested by Chen et al. (2011) were used in modelling the specimens such as ma-
terial properties, dimensions, boundary conditions and loading conditions. A plastic-damage model
was used to model the concrete behaviour, where it is assumed that the main two failure modes are
tensile cracking and compressive crushing. The steel was assumed as a simplied bilinear material
and identical in tension and compression. The elastic modulus, Es, was assumed to be a 200 GPa. A
Poissons ratio of 0.3 was used for the steel reinforcement. The perfect bond between the steel rein-
forcement and the concrete was assumed. In the nite element analyses, concrete was modelled with
linear 8-node, 3-D solid elements (C3D8R). Longitudinal reinforcement and stirrups are modelled with
linear 2-node, 3-D truss elements (T3D2) that are embedded in the concrete element. An average mesh
size of 50 mm is adopted for the models.
For estimating the initial stiffness under low vertical loading, the small displacement equal to 3 mm
(equivalent to 0.15% drift as compared with beam length) was applied to the beam tip with gradual
small increments. Automatic stabilization and small time increment were used to avoid a diverged so-
lution. Figure 10 shows the numerical and experimental results for the force-versus-tip deection of
the beam for all four specimens tested by Chen et al. (2011), which agree very well.
Figure 10 also shows the initial lateral stiffness obtained from the analytical effective wall width model.
The values of lateral stiffness calculated by the analytical model show close correlation with the actual
lateral stiffness obtained from experimental and numerical results up to 2 mm displacement (0.1% drift),
though the analytical stiffness was slightly overestimated at higher displacements, which could be attrib-
uted to the softening behaviour caused by concrete cracking. The numerical FEM model has taken into
account this behaviour in its constitute models for materials; thus, the softening effect can be captured.
It is noticed that all the results in the previous studies (Kwan and Chan, 2000; Yang et al., 2005; Lin
and Shi, 2010; Chen et al., 2011) are based on linear elastic behaviour. While cracking of concrete struc-
tures leads to a reduction of the stiffness, the reduction extent is also inuenced by many factors including
the type, level and magnitude of applied loads. The reduction in wall stiffness due to the effect of cracks
can be reected in the analysis of nonplanar beamwall connections by using stiffness reduction factor.
Further tests and analysis are needed to explore the appropriate stiffness reduction factor.
The similar issue also exists when using equivalent frame model to analyse the at slab structures.
As the level of applied slab moments due to lateral loads increase, more cracks propagate in the slabs,
which reduce the stiffness. The reduction in slab stiffness due to the effect of cracks is considered by
the stiffness reduction factor in the analysis of at slab structures using equivalent frame models (Luo
and Durrani, 1995; Han et al., 2009).

7. DESIGN EXAMPLE

In order to illustrate the application of the proposed effective wall width model and to study the pos-
sible coupling effect of nonplanar coupling beams, a practical case of a 20-storey wallframe structure
shown in Figure 11(a), consisting of two shear walls connected to the frame in vertical plane

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 13 of 17

Figure 10. Dependence of tip deection of beam and shear wall; (a) SpecimenJ1; (b) Specimen J2; (c)
Specimen J3; (d) Specimen J4.

perpendicular to the middle of the walls, was considered. The width of walls was 6 m with a thickness
of 300 mm, and the cross-section of columns was 400 600 mm. Storey height was 4 m, and the total
height of the building was 80 m. Beams had a cross-section of 300 500 mm and length of 6 m. The
structure was subjected to three cases of lateral concentrated loads of 100 kN on the 7th, 14th and
20th oor levels.
The FEM frame analysis package ETABS was used to analyse the building structure. First, the
nonplanar beamwall connections were treated as hinges; hence, the coupling effect of beams was
neglected. The wall was re-analysed by considering the coupling effect of beams using the proposed
effective width model. In the numerical analysis, the original wall was discarded and the effective
width model was simplied to a single ctitious column. A ctitious column with a width of
1526 mm was determined based on the proposed model. Numerical results of the lateral deection sub-
jected to an applied load of 100 kN at top are plotted in Figure 11(b). It can be seen that the coupling
effect of the nonplanar coupling beams can reduce the lateral deection of such a nonplanar coupled
wall structure more than 30%, from 214 mm by the hinge assumptions to 141.5 mm by considering
the effective width of the wall.

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
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14 of 17 H. BEHNAM, J. S. KUANG AND Q. HUANG

Figure 11. (a) Shear wallframe system; (b) lateral deection of the structure.

Figure 12 shows the sway deections of the building using the previous effective wall width models
for the three load cases. The effective width and the resulting drift at the top of the structure for the
three load cases are listed in Table 3.
It can be seen from Figure 12 and Table 3 that both of the results of the effective wall width and top
drift from the proposed model show very good agreement among with those from the existing model,
regarding the estimation of the coupling effect of the nonplanar beamwall connections. There is now
a sufciently close consensus about the order of magnitude of the effective width of nonplanar beam
wall joints for various design codes of practice to recommend guides for designers to limit the wall
damage due to the excessive out-of-plane deformation of the shear wall caused by nonplanar coupling
beams.

Figure 12. Deection of structure in three load cases; (a) 100 kN at 7th oor (28 m); (b) 100 kN at 14th
oor (56 m); (c) 100 kN at 20th oor (80 m).

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 15 of 17

Table 3. Results of effective wall width and top drift ratio.

Top draft (%)
Effective
Model width (mm) load at 7th oor load at 14th oor load at 20th oor
Proposed model 1526 0.117 0.149 0.176
Chen et al. (2011) 2031 0.113 0.145 0.171
Lin and Shi (2010) 1925 0.114 0.146 0.172
Kwan and Chan (2000) 1660 0.116 0.148 0.175
Yang et al. (2005) 930 0.125 0.159 0.189

8. CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, a theoretical model is proposed based on the equivalent frame analogy for estimating the
effective width of shear walls in nonplanar beamwall connections. The concept of the effective wall
width was introduced and determined in terms of the rotational stiffness of beamwall joint in the
equivalent frame model assumptions. The proposed effective width model was veried by both the
previous experimental studies and nite element analyses. On the basis of this study, the following
conclusions can be drawn.
(1) The results of the parametric study show that the effective wall width of nonplanar beamwall
joints depends largely on the wall height and width and beam cross-sectional dimensions. The
effective wall width increases with the increase in the storey height and beams cross-sectional
dimensions, but slightly decreases with the increase in the shear wall width.
(2) The accuracy of the proposed effective wall width model was compared with existing simplied
models. The results of effective width from the proposed model show very good agreement with
those from Kwan and Chan (2000), Lin and Shi (2010) and Chen et al. (2011) for a wide range of
practical wall and beam dimensions.
(3) The applicability and accuracy of the proposed model are demonstrated by a design example of
20-storey wallframe structure. Results showed that the coupling effect of the nonplanar coupling
beams can reduce the lateral deection of such a structure more than 30%. It has been shown that
the proposed analytical model of the effective wall width for nonplanar beamwall connections in
tall buildings provides a simple and effective, yet accurate, means of analysis and estimate for the
coupling effect of nonplanar coupling beams.
(4) In the proposed model, all the key design variables that affect the effective width of shear wall in
nonplanar beamwall joints, in particular the cross-sectional dimensions of the beam and shear
wall, have been appropriately included in deriving the proposed model based on structural me-
chanics. The proposed effective width model can be applied to different congurations of the
beams and shear walls and hence can be used to simulate different practical cases.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The support of the Hong Kong Research Grant Council under grant numbers 613712 and 16209115 is
gratefully acknowledged.

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AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES

Hamdolah Behnam is currently a PhD candidate in civil engineering at the Hong Kong University of
Science and Technology. He received his MSc from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2011. His re-
search interests include experimental studies and numerical simulations of seismic resistance of rein-
forced concrete and masonry structures, in particular, disturbed regions in concrete structures.

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
DOI: 10.1002/tal
 NONPLANAR BEAMWALL CONNECTIONS 17 of 17

J.S. Kuang is a Professor of civil engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge. His research interests include
seismic analysis and design of concrete structures and seismic vulnerability assessment of tall build-
ings. He received the Telford Premium Prize and the T.K. Hsieh Award from the Institution of Civil
Engineers, UK.

Qunxian Huang is currently an associate professor in structural engineering at Huaqiao University,

Xiamen, China, where he received his BSc, MSc and PhD. His research interests include seismic anal-
ysis and design of reinforced concrete and masonry structures, and seismic hazard mitigation for
buildings.

Copyright 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Struct. Design Tall Spec. Build. 2017; 26: e1303
DOI: 10.1002/tal