©COMPUTERS AND STRUCTURES, INC.

, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA AUGUST 2002

SHEAR WALL DESIGN CSA-A23.3-94
Technical Note
Wall Pier Shear Design

This Technical Note describes how the program designs concrete wall piers for
shear using CSA-A23.3-94. Note that in this program you cannot specify
shear reinforcing and then have the program check it. The program only de-
signs the pier for shear and reports how much shear reinforcing is required.
The shear design is performed at stations at the top and bottom of the pier.

General
The wall pier shear reinforcing for each leg of the pier is designed for each of
the design load combinations. The following steps are involved in designing
the shear reinforcing for a particular leg of a wall pier section for a particular
design loading combination.

1. Determine the factored forces Pf, Mf and Vf that are acting on the leg of
the wall pier section.

2. Determine the factored shear resistance, vc, that can be carried by the
concrete. Note that Pf and Mf are required for the calculation of vc.

3. Determine the required shear reinforcing to carry the balance of the shear
force.

Determine Factored Forces

The factored forces Pf, Mf and Vf that are acting on the individual legs of the
pier section are determined from the basic forces for each load case and the
load combination factors. Then the leg of the wall pier is designed for the
factored forces.

In addition to designing for factored shear force, each leg of the shear wall is
designed for enhanced factored seismic loading. In the enhanced factored
forces, the seismic load factors are multiplied by a force modification factor,
R. The force modification factor R reflect the capacity of a structure to dissi-
pate energy through inelastic behavior. As given in the National Building Code

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Shear Wall Design CSA-A23.3-94 Wall Pier Shear Design

of Canada, the value of R is taken as follows (CSA 21.1, NBCC 4.1.9(8), Table
4.1.9.1.B)

1.5 for Ordinary wall

4.0 for Ductile Coupled wall

R = 3.5 for Ductile Partially Coupled wall

3.5 for Ductile Flexural wall

2.0 for walls with Nominal ductility

Determine the Concrete Shear Capacity

Given the design force set Mf, Pf, and Vf, the shear capacity carried by the
concrete alone, vc, is calculated using the "General Method" or "Compression
Field Theory" as follows (CSA 11.4):

ƒ For designing Ordinary Shear Walls or all kinds of shear walls for non-seis-
mic loads, vc is calculated as follows:

vc = 1.3λβ f c' (CSA 11.4.2.1)

where β is a factor indicating the ability of diagonally cracked concrete to

resist shear. It is a function of stress condition and its average value is 0.2,
with a usual range of 0.1 to 0.4 (CSA 11.4.4). It is computed from CSA Ta-
ble 11-1 through an iterative procedure as β is related to θ. In computing
the β factor, the following two parameters (εx, vratio) are used:

M f / d v + 0.5 N f + 0.5V f cot θ

εx = (CSA 11.4.6)
E s As

0 ≤ εx ≤ 0.002 (CSA 11.4.6)

V f / bw d v
vratio = (CSA 11.4.5)
λϕ c f c'

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Shear Wall Design CSA-A23.3-94 Wall Pier Shear Design

In the preceding equation, dv, the distance between the resultants of the
tensile and compressive forces, is conservatively taken to be 0.8 Lp.

dv = 0.8 Lp (CSA 11.0)

The term λ that is used as a multiplied on all fc' terms in this Technical
Note is a shear strength reduction factor that applies to light-weight con-
crete (CSA 11.0, CSA 8.6.5). It is equal to 1 for normal weight concrete.
This factor is specified in the concrete material properties.

Here θ is an angle of inclination of diagonal compressive stresses. It is a

function of current stress condition and its approximate value is 34 degrees
with a range of 27 degrees to 45 degrees (CSA 11.4.4). It is computed from
CSA Table 11.1 using the parameters εx and vratio through an iterative pro-
cedure.

ƒ For designing Ductile Flexural walls, Ductile Coupled walls, and Ductile Par-
tially Coupled walls subjected to seismic loads, vc is computed based on the
assumption that εx = 0.015 (CSA 21.7.3.2.6). However, vratio is calculated
using the same procedure as is used for the Ordinary walls. With those val-
ues of εx and vratio, the β factor is obtained from CSA Table 21.1 instead of
Table 11.1. In that case, θ is always taken as 45 degrees. With those modi-
fication, the shear design calculation proceeds in the same way as that for
Ordinary shear walls.

ƒ For designing shear walls with Normal ductility subjected to seismic loads,
vc is computed based on the assumption that

β = 0.1 and θ = 45 degrees (CSA 21.9.3.4.2a)

Otherwise the procedure for computing vc is the same as that for Ordinary
moment resisting frames (CSA 11.4).

Determine the Required Shear Reinforcement

Given Vf and vc, the following procedure provides the required shear reinforc-
ing in area per unit length.

ƒ The average shear stress is computed for a rectangular section as:

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Shear Wall Design CSA-A23.3-94 Wall Pier Shear Design

Vf
v=
t p dv

In the preceding equation, dv, the distance between the resultants of the
tensile and compressive forces, is conservatively taken to be 0.8 Lp.

dv = 0.8 Lp (CSA 11.0)

ƒ The average shear stress, v, is limited to a maximum limit, vmax, given by

vmax = 0.25 f c' (CSA 11.4.3)

ƒ The shear reinforcement per unit spacing is computed as follows:

If v ≤ ϕc(vc/2),

Av
= 0, (CSA 11.2.8.1)
s

else if ϕc(vc/2) < v ≤ (ϕcvc + ϕs0.06 fc' cotθ),

'
As 0.06 fc t p
= (CSA 11.2.8.4)
s fy

else if (ϕcvc + ϕs0.06 fc' cotθ) < v ≤ ϕcvmax,

Av (v − ϕ c vc )t p
= (CSA 11.4.3.2)
s ϕ s f y cot θ

else if v > ϕcvmax,

a failure condition is declared. (CSA 11.3.4)

The limit of fc' is taken to be 80 MPa for Ordinary wall piers and 55 MPa for
Ductile Coupled walls, Ductile Flexural walls, Ductile Partially Coupled walls,
and walls with Nominal ductility.

fc' ≤ 80 MPa (Ordinary) (CSA 8.6.1.1)

fc' ≤ 55 MPa (Nominal and Ductile) (CSA 21.2.3.1)

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Shear Wall Design CSA-A23.3-94 Wall Pier Shear Design

The limit of fy is taken to be 500 MPa for Ordinary walls, and 400 MPa for
other types of walls.

fy ≤ 500 MPa (Ordinary) (CSA 8.5.1)

fy ≤ 400 MPa (Nominal and Ductile) (CSA 21.2.4.1)

The maximum of all the calculated Av/s values, obtained from each load com-
bination, is reported for each leg of the wall along with the controlling shear
force and associated load combination number. You can set the output units
for the distributed shear reinforcing in the shear wall design preferences.

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