Construction Cost Estimating

      

Load transfer system in shear walls

Shear walls belong to the vertical structural members which are constructed to withstand the horizontal forces operating on a building structure. Shear walls also stand for the walls which are reinforced & formed with braced panels to bear lateral forces. The thickness of the shear wall for regular buildings is normally remains in the range of 150 mm to 400 mm.

Benefits of Shear Wall:

The shear wall provides the following benefits:

1. Arranging Lateral Strength to building : Shear Wall should arrange adequate lateral shear strength to the building to counter the horizontal earthquake forces, wind forces and transmit these forces to the foundation.

2. Arranging Lateral Stiffness to building : Shear Walls arrange large stiffness to building in the direction of their orientation, which minimize lateral sway of the building and as a result the damage to structure is significantly decreased.

Load Transfer System: Shear walls bear Horizontal Seismic forces from the top to the bottom of the foundations. Impact of overturning on shear walls is quite large. Therefore, design of their foundations needs special foundations.

When, the Shear wall refers to an exterior wall, then it will also bear the wind load & then it should also be designed to combat the wind load and this load is also transmitted to the foundation of the shear wall.

Several walls and the frames existing side by side in a building are connected at various floor levels through the floor system, which disperse the lateral loads to these dissimilar systems in an efficient manner.

The interaction among the shear walls and the frames provides benefits to the structure as the walls control the frame deformations in the lower storey, whereas the frame control the wall deformations in the upper storey. Frame-shear wall systems are usually arranged in buildings up to about 40 storeys.

The load related to each component belongs to a function of position and relative stiffness. With regard to cantilever shear walls, stiff frames and short shear walls when exposed to horizontal load deform with a pure shear behavior, with a concave shape in the upper area and convex in lower area.

Whereas cantilever shear walls contain a flexural behavior, the deflection is convex similar to a BMD of a cantilever beam, all through the height of the wall.

Load transfer system in shear walls