Analysis and Design of Shear Walls

Shear Wall
The term shear wall is used to describe a wall that resists
lateral wind or earthquake loads acting parallel to the
plane of the wall in addition to the gravity loads from the
floors and roof adjacent to the wall.
Coupled Shear Walls
Two or more shear walls in the same plane (or two wall
assemblies) are sometimes connected at floor levels by
coupling beams, so that the walls act as a unit when
resisting lateral loads.
Reinforcement in Shear Walls
The reinforcement in a shear wall is generally made up of:
(a) Distributed horizontal and vertical reinforcement
spread uniformly over the length between the boundary
elements and over the height of the wall.
(b) Concentrated vertical reinforcement is located in
boundary elements at or near the edges of the wall and is
tied in much the same way that column cages are.
Minimum Reinforcement
For deformed bars not larger than No. 5, ACI Code
Section 14.3 requires minimum areas for distributed
vertical reinforcement in walls to be equal to and the
minimum area of distributed horizontal reinforcement in
walls to be equal to 0.002Ag
Minimum Reinforcement

Special RC Structural Walls
Special reinforced concrete structural walls are walls that
have been proportioned and detailed to meet special code
requirements for resisting combinations of shear, moment,
and axial force that result as a building sways through
multiple displacement cycles during strong earthquake
ground shaking.
Special proportioning and detailing requirements result
in a wall capable of resisting strong earthquake
shaking without unacceptable loss of stiffness or strength.
Structural Walls and Shear Walls
ACI 318 refers to structural walls and, with regard to
Seismic Design Categories D through F, special structural
walls. The equivalent terms used by ASCE 7 are shear
walls and special shear walls.
Wall Cross Sections
Slender versus Squat walls
Slender walls (h
w
/l
w
2.0) tend to behave
much like flexural cantilevers. The preferred
inelastic behavior mode of slender walls is ductile
flexural yielding, without shear failure.
In contrast, walls with very low aspect ratios (h
w
/l
w

0.5) tend to resist lateral forces through a diagonal strut
mechanism in which concrete and distributed horizontal
and vertical reinforcement resist shear.
Slender versus Squat walls
Shear yielding of slender walls generally is considered
unacceptable because it reduces inelastic deformation
capacity below expected values.
Shear yielding of very squat walls is often accepted
because such walls tend to have high inherent strength and
low ductility demands.