Analysis of shear walls for a suitable opening

Abstract

The main purpose of shear walls in reinforced concrete structures is to resist the lateral forces affecting the structure. However, the openings created for architectural reasons significantly change the behaviour of the shear wall and cause short column formation and sudden collapse of the structure due to the openings on them. In this study, opening shear walls were analysed analytically. Twenty-nine different frames were selected and analysed according to predetermined parameters such as frame height, frame spacing, shear wall thickness, opening/frame height ratio, concrete flexibility, modulus and moment of inertia of frame columns. In this context, a total of 5200 linear elastic analyses were performed. The analysis was carried out on seven different parameters. As a result of the analysis, it has been found that there is a non-linear relationship between the opening width and the stresses in the columns, and a nonlinear relationship is predicted that it can directly trigger short column formation.