COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES FOR SHEARWALL MODELLING

Abstract

Shear walls are the most important elements for a building. Especially in Albania as a seismic place, shear walls are very used due to the resistment of the forces coming from the earthquake. Different techniques utilizing either shell elements or combination of frame elements can be used. Modeling shearwalls is very important issue for static and dynamic analyses of building structures. This study consist in finding the most effective way of modeling shearwalls in structural analyses of building. The program used for this purpose, is the Etabs design program. It is obtained by analyzing a 14-storey vertical structure in elevation, a dual system frame + shear wall. For this case, three models of shearwall, beam with rigid arm, plates with columns and plates only are going to be compared. Referred to the satisfactorily idealized of the first model (beam with rigid arm), the two other models are going to be compared with it, in order to reflect the good behavior of shearwall element. The best model is the simplest one that still provides the required results with acceptable accuracy. As a primary basis of comparison is the displacement at the top floor of the structure and then are taken into consideration the other results obtained of the internal forces of the wall and frame element. It can be said that, based on these results, the second model (plates with column) is the appropriate one.