a small description about shear wall

1. INTRODUCTION:-
There has been a considerable increase in the construction of tall buildings both residential and
commercial and the modern trend is towards more tall and slender structures. Thus the effects
of lateral loads like wind loads, earthquake
importance and almost every designer is faced with the problems of providing adequate
strength and stability against lateral loads.
Shear wall system is one of the most commonly used lateral load resisting sy
buildings.
WHAT IS SHEAR WALL
Shear walls are vertical elements of the horizontal force resisting system
earthquake loads downwards to the
external walls that typically form a box which provides all of the lateral support for the building.
They will have the strength and stiffness to resist the horizontal forces
seismic force.
WHERE SHOULD SHEAR WALLS BE LOCATED
Shear walls should be located on each level of the structure including the crawl space
form an effective box structure, equal length shear walls should be placed symmetrically on
all four exterior walls of the building. Shear walls should be added to the building interior
when the exterior walls cannot provide sufficient strength and
There has been a considerable increase in the construction of tall buildings both residential and
commercial and the modern trend is towards more tall and slender structures. Thus the effects
of lateral loads like wind loads, earthquake loads and blast forces are attaining increasing
importance and almost every designer is faced with the problems of providing adequate
strength and stability against lateral loads.
Shear wall system is one of the most commonly used lateral load resisting system in high rise
SHEAR WALL:-
Shear walls are vertical elements of the horizontal force resisting system
earthquake loads downwards to the foundation. In construction, shear walls are straight
external walls that typically form a box which provides all of the lateral support for the building.
hey will have the strength and stiffness to resist the horizontal forces like wind force and
RE SHOULD SHEAR WALLS BE LOCATED?
Shear walls should be located on each level of the structure including the crawl space
an effective box structure, equal length shear walls should be placed symmetrically on
building. Shear walls should be added to the building interior
when the exterior walls cannot provide sufficient strength and stiffness.
There has been a considerable increase in the construction of tall buildings both residential and
commercial and the modern trend is towards more tall and slender structures. Thus the effects
loads and blast forces are attaining increasing
importance and almost every designer is faced with the problems of providing adequate
stem in high rise
Shear walls are vertical elements of the horizontal force resisting system. They carry
construction, shear walls are straight
external walls that typically form a box which provides all of the lateral support for the building.
like wind force and
Shear walls should be located on each level of the structure including the crawl space. To
an effective box structure, equal length shear walls should be placed symmetrically on
building. Shear walls should be added to the building interior

2. These walls generally start at foundation level and are continuous throughout the building
height. Their minimum thickness can be 150mm and maximum 400mm in high rise buildings.
Shear walls are usually provided along both length and width of buildings.
CLASSIFICATION OF SHEAR WALLS:-
a) Simple rectangular types and flanged walls (bar bell type).
b) Coupled shear walls.
c) Rigid frame shear walls.
d) Framed walls with in filled frames.
e) Column supported shear walls.
f) Core type shear walls.
TYPES OF SHEAR WALLS:-
a) RC Shear Wall.
b) Plywood Shear Wall.
c) Mid ply Shear Wall.
d) RC Hollow Concrete Block Masonry Wall.
e) Steel Plate Shear Wall.
RC SHEAR WALL:-
It consists of reinforced concrete walls and reinforced concrete slabs. Wall thickness varies
from 140 mm to 500 mm, depending on the number of stories, building age, and thermal
insulation requirements. In general, these walls are continuous throughout the building height.

3. In general, the wall reinforcement consists of two layers of distributed reinforcement
(horizontal and vertical) throughout the wall length. The minimum area of reinforcing steel to
be provided is 0.0025 times the cross-sectional area, along each of the horizontal and vertical
directions.
RC SHEAR WALL

4. PLYWOOD SHEAR WALL:-
Plywood is the traditional material used in the construction of Shear Walls. The creation of pre-
fabricated shear panels have made it possible to inject strong shear assemblies into small walls
that fall at either side of a opening in a shear wall.
MIDPLY SHEAR WALL:-
The MIDPLY shear wall is an improved timber shear wall that was developed by redesigning the
joints between sheathing and framing members, so that the failure modes observed in standard
wall.
In MIDPLY shear wall design, one ply of sheathing material is placed at the center of the wall
between a series of pairs.
PLYWOOD SHEAR WALL

5. RC HOLLOW CONCRETE BLOCK MASONRY WALLS:-
RHCBM walls are constructed by reinforcing the hollow concrete block masonry, by taking
advantage of hollow spaces and shapes of the hollow blocks. It requires continuous steel rods
(reinforcement) both in the vertical and horizontal directions.
RHCBM WALL

6. STEEL PLATE SHEAR WALL:-
In general, steel plate shear wall system consists of a steel plate wall, boundary columns and
horizontal floor beams. Together, the steel plate wall and boundary columns act as a vertical
plate girder. The columns act as flanges of the vertical plate girder and the steel plate wall acts
as its web.
ADVANTAGE OF STEEL PLATE SHEAR WALL TO RESIST LATERAL
LOADS:-
1. The system, designed and detailed properly is very ductile and has relatively large energy
dissipation capability.
2. The steel shear wall system has relatively high initial stiffness, thus very effective in limiting the
drift.
3. Compared to RC shear walls, the steel shear wall is much lighter which can result in less weight
to be carried by the columns and foundations as well as less seismic load due to reduced mass
of the structure.
4. Compared to reinforced concrete shear walls, steel plate shear walls can be much easier and
faster to construct.
STEEL PLATE SHEAR WALL

7. DUCTILE DESIGN OF SHEAR WALLS:-
Just like reinforced concrete beams and columns, reinforced concrete shear walls also perform
much better if designed to be ductile. Overall geometric proportions of the wall, types and
amount of reinforcement, and connection with remaining elements in the building help in
improving the ductility of walls.
OVERALL GEOMETRY OF WALLS:-
Shear walls are rectangular in cross-section, i.e., one dimension of the cross- section is much
larger than the other. While rectangular cross-section is common, L-, U-, H- and I-shaped
sections are also used. Thin-walled hollow reinforced concrete shafts around the elevator core
of buildings also act as shear walls, and should be taken advantage of to resist earthquake
forces.
ADVANTAGES OF SHEAR WALLS IN BUILDINGS:-
Properly designed and detailed buildings with shear walls have shown very good performance
in past earthquakes. Shear walls in high seismic regions require special detailing. However, in

8. past earthquakes, even buildings with sufficient amount of walls that were not specially
detailed for seismic performance were saved from collapse. Shear wall buildings are a popular
choice in many earthquake prone countries, like Chile, New Zealand and USA. Shear walls are
easy to construct, because reinforcement detailing of walls is relatively straight forward and
therefore easily implemented at site.
CODES FOR DESIGN OF SHEAR WALLS:-
Widely used design approaches for shear walls------------
ACI method (ACI 318-1995)
IS 13920:1993 Indians Standard Ductile Detailing of RC members
IS 456:2000
Code provides a ductile design to give adequate toughness and ductility to resist severe
earthquakes.
CONCLUSION:-
Thus shear walls are one of the most effective building elements in resisting lateral forces
during earthquake. By constructing shear walls damages due to effect of lateral forces due to
earthquake and high winds can be minimized. Shear walls construction will provide larger
stiffness to the buildings there by reducing the damage to structure and its contents.
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