Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Shear walls resist in-plane forces and are used to provide lateral stability in systems subjected to wind
and earthquake loads. Shear walls may be bearing or nonbearing. Bearing and shear walls are
considered structural walls by ASCE/SEI 7 (Ref. 14.1 ), and in either case both must be designed for a
combination of all applied loads.
Figure 14.2 illustrates the in-plane and out-of-plane forces on walls and identifies general wall
dimensions.
vertical as well as horizontal reinforcement is needed, and the ACI Code requires
vertical bars or wires with area A ℓ and spacing s 1 (discussed in Section 14.5) such that
the ratio of the vertical steel to gross concrete area for a horizontal section ρ ℓ is not less
than given in Eq. (14.2)
ρ ℓ ≥ 0.0025 + 0.5(2.5 − h w /ℓ w )( ρ t − 0.0025) (14.2)
and not less than 0.0025, but need not be greater than the minimum horizontal reinforcement
ρ t required by ACI 11.6.1. In Eq. (14.2), h w is the height of the entire wall
and ℓ w is the length of entire wall, or length of wall segment or wall pier considered
in direction of shear force. When ρ t = 0.0025, the longitudinal reinforcement requirement
is ρ ℓ = 0.0025.
Reinforcement spacing s must not exceed 3 h or 18 in., in accordance with ACI
Code 11.7. If shear reinforcement is required to carry the factored load, the maximum
spacing must also be less than ℓ w /3 for transverse reinforcement and ℓ w /5 for longitudinal
reinforcement. For walls with thicknesses greater than 10 in., except basement
and cantilever retaining walls, the reinforcement must be distributed in two layers parallel
to the wall faces. Where the reinforcement is placed in two layers, at least 1
_ 2 and
not more than 2
_ 3 of the reinforcement must be at least 2 in. and not more than h /3 from
the exterior face. The other layer, consisting of the remaining portion of the reinforcement,
is placed at least 3
_ 4 in. but not more than h y3 from the interior surface. The ACI
Code does not specify requirements for interior walls; however, a minimum of 3
_ 4 in.
cover at both faces is appropriate.
ACI Code 11.7.5 requires the use of additional reinforcement to limit cracks that
can occur near the corners of openings in walls, such as used for windows and doors.
That reinforcement must consist of at least two No. 5 (No. 16) bars in walls with two
layers of reinforcement in both directions or one No. 5 (No. 16) bar in walls with a
single layer of reinforcement in both directions. The additional reinforcement must be
anchored to develop f y in tension at the corners of the openings and may be placed on
the diagonal near each corner or oriented in both the horizontal and the vertical directions
near each corner.
where A g is the gross area of the wall, k is the effective length factor to account for
stability due to end fixity, ℓ c is the unsupported height of the wall measured center
to center of the joints as it is for columns, and h is the wall thickness. The value of k
equals 0.8 for walls braced against lateral translation and restrained against rotation at
one or both ends, 1.0 for walls restrained against translation and unrestrained against
rotation at both ends, and 2.0 for walls not braced against translation. There is no
requirement to design for bending using the simplified design method.
EXAMPLE 14.1 A 12-ft long bearing wall carries a factored load from above of 15,000 plf, as shown
in
Fig. 14.3. The load is centered on the wall thickness. For a center-to-center floor height
h w = ℓ c = 12 ft-6 in., f c _ = 4000 psi, and f y = 60,000 psi, design the wall using the simplified
design method.
S olution. Assume a wall thickness of h = 6 in., giving a wall dead load of w d = h y12
× 150 pcf × h w = 6y12 × 150 × 12.5 = 938 plf. The factored load on the wall is
P u = (1.2 × w d + w u ) ℓ w = (1.2 × 938 + 15,000) × 12y1000 = 195 kips.
The load is applied within the middle third of the wall thickness, so the simplified design
method may be used. Using Eq. (14.3) with k = 1.0, the wall capacity is
Nilson P450