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Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Civil Engineering 2012
Effect of Shear Wall Configuration on Seismic
Performance of Building
Ehsan Salimi Firoozabad1, Dr. K. Rama Mohan Rao2, Bahador Bagheri3
1.Post Graduate Student, Civil Engineering Department, JNTU Hyderabad, India
ehsansalimy.f@gmail.com
2.Professor and Head of Department, Civil Engineering Department, JNTU Hyderabad, India
rkunapareddy@yahoo.com
3. Post Graduate Student, Civil Engineering Department, JNTU Hyderabad, India
bahador_baghery@yahoo.com
AbstractOne of the most commonly used lateral load resisting
systems in buildings is shear wall system. It is well-established
fact that shear walls are quite effective in seismic load
resistance of medium-rise to high-rise reinforced concrete
buildings. Shear walls have very high in-plane stiffness and
strength, which can be used simultaneously to resist large
horizontal loads and support gravity loads, making them quite
beneficial in seismic performance of buildings. Lot of
literature is available to design and analysis of shear wall;
the effect of different parameters such as: time period, wall
density, slenderness ratio, on seismic behavior of shear wall
buildings has been studied as well. However, the decision about
the location of shear wall in multistory building and its effect
on performance against earthquakes is not much discussed in
the literatures.
In the present study main focus is to determine the effect of
shear wall configuration on seismic performance of buildings.
Time history analysis has been done to buildings with different
number of stories and various configurations with same plan.
The top story displacements have been obtained and compared
to each other for all models to meet the effect of shear wall
configuration on seismic performance of buildings. The
analysis and design of models have been studied based on IS
codes, and SAP 2000 software have been used for this purpose.
Index TermsShear wall configuration, Reinforced concrete
building, Seismic performance of building, Time history
analysis, Top story displacement
I. INTRODUCTION
Shear walls are vertical elements of the horizontal force
resisting system.[1] Shear walls are like vertically-oriented
wide beams that carry earthquake loads transfers to the
foundation. Shear wall system is often used for resisting the
lateral forces caused by seismic excitation, because of their
high stiffness and strength.[2] Shear wall can be used
effectively for controlling the drift against seismic loads acting
on them.Mete A. Sozen (1989) is presented the critical
structural parameters of shear wall building to relate drift
response to intensity of ground motion in an effort to answer
design questions about the required amount of details and
walls.[4] In order to evaluate seismic performance of confined
masonry buildings a methodology that compares
displacement demands imposed by real earthquakes and their
displacement capacities are proposed by Maximiliano Astroza
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(2000). Ref. [5] in Young-Hun Oh (2006) study, the level of
demands for deformation of shear walls was investigated
using a displacement-based design approach.[6] R.K.L. Su
(2008) reviews the seismic engineering research conducted
in Hong Kong with special emphasis on the prediction of
seismic drift demand and capacity of existing buildings which
have not been designed. [7] Kenneth A. Gent Franch (2008)
proposed the vulnerability index for masonry buildings was
modified to apply in confined masonry buildings and to obtain
a reasonable relationship with the wall density per unit floor
index. [8] the dynamic response of high rise structures under
the influence of discrete staggered shear walls has been
studied by B. Kameshwari (2011).
The main objective of the research work presented in this
paper is to study the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete
shear wall buildings with respect to shear wall configurations.
Four buildings with same plan and different number of stories
(10, 15, 20, and 25) have been modeled considering six various
shear wall configuration.[9] the criteria for structural
performance of shear wall can be represented by the
deformation demand inherent in the structure. The
displacement demand of buildings can be obtained when
these structures are submitted to real action of earthquake.
The ELCENTRO and TABAS earthquakes are used for this
purpose.
II. MODELING THE PROBLEM
Four buildings have been considered with same plan as
shown in figure 1 and different number of stories. Six different
configurations of shear wall are considered for all buildings.
The buildings are considered in zone V, with importance factor
of 1.5, response reduction factor of 5, and medium soil
condition. All loads such as: Dead, Live, and Earthquake
loads have been calculated and applied on building. Ref. [10]
the load combinations are considered based on IS 1893 and
the model has been analyzed and designed based on Indian
Standard Codes using SAP 2000 software package.
Shear wall configuration:
Total six configurations have been considered for all
buildings to evaluate the effect of shear wall configuration
on seismic performance of building. Each configuration of
shear walls is shown in different figure and named as shown
in fig [2-7].
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Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Civil Engineering 2012

Fig. 1. Base plan of buildings

Fig. 2. First shear wall configuration Fig. 3. Second shear wall configuration

Fig. 4. Third shear wall configuration Fig. 5. Fourth shear wall configuration

Fig. 6. Fifth shear wall configuration Fig. 7. Sixth shear wall configuration

III. DETERMINATION OF DISPLACEMENT DEMAND Earthquake Engineering Research Center.The top story
displacement of each building in X and Y direction with
The criteria for the structural performance of a shear wall
various configuration of shear wall is obtained and classified
can be represented by the deformation demand of structure.
for ELCENTRO and TABAS earthquake. The values have
The displacement demand of buildings can be obtained when
been read from one joint of roof level in both negative and
these structures are submitted to real action of earthquake
positive direction. So the largest value among those four
(time history analysis). The ELCENTRO and TABAS
values has been considered and given in table I, as maximum
earthquakes are used for this purpose. Ref. [11] these
displacement of building.
recorded accelerograms have been elicited from Pacific

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TABLE I. MAXIMUM TOP STORY DRIFT
IV. CODE LIMITATION OF STORY DRIFT
According to IS1893, the story drift in any story due to
the minimum specified lateral load shall not exceed 0.004 times
of story height. It means the maximum mean drift, which is
defined as top story drift divided by height of the building
shall not exceed 0.004. The maximum mean drift to number of
story diagram is obtained for both earthquakes to do
comparison between the values of maximum mean drift and
code limitation. Also the equation of each trend line (based
on the values of maximum mean drift correspond to the
number of story) and corresponding correlation coefficients
is given; the correlation coefficient indicates the accuracy of
equation. The R square value is between zero (lowest
accuracy) and one (highest accuracy). Hence the values
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Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Civil Engineering 2012
OF BUILDING
which are close to 1, indicates that the equations are accurate
to find maximum mean drift. The mean drift values shown in
fig [8-13] should be less than permissible drift based on IS
1983 which is 0.004 for each story. The maximum mean drift of
all buildings with various configurations under ELCENTRO
earthquake are less than 0.004. The results obtained from 25
storey building show that, maximum mean drift is more than
0.004 in all shear wall configurations except sixth one. So, it is
observed, although,those configurations is adequate for 10,
15, and 20 storey building, but when the number of story
increasing those configuration may not satisfy the drift
limitation. The sixth configuration results are acceptable for
all models. The maximum drift is 0.0038 in 25 stories building
which is less than 0.004. So the best shear wall position for
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this building, considering its plan is the sixth configuration. in lower number of storey buildings but, it satisfied the
However, the values are more than those in other positions limitation for all considering buildings.

Fig. 8. First shear wall configuration

Fig. 9. Second shear wall configuration

Fig. 10. Third shear wall configuration

Fig. 11. Fourth shear wall configuration

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Fig. 12. Fifth sear wall configuration
Fig. 13. Sixth shear wall configuration
CONCLUSIONS
The study on the dynamic response of building with
various shear wall configuration and their influence on
seismic behavior of building is carried out and the top storey
drift for those configurations are obtained. From the study,
the following conclusions have been made.
1. Different position of shear walls can reduce the top
story drift at least twice, which means the drift of building is
reduced 100 percent from highest value to lowest one.
2. Maximum drift limitation of 0.004 as per IS code is
satisfied for all height of the building using ELCENTRO
earthquake, whereas the above limitation is not satisfied by
TABAS earthquake.
3. For configuration sixth, the maximum drift limitation is
satisfied by both ELCENTRO and TABAS earthquakes, this
shows that, the location of shear walls plays major role for
the limitation of drift.
4. The quantity of shear walls cannot guarantee the seismic
behavior of buildings, which means, if you provide more shear
walls, it will not guarantee the better seismic behavior of
buildings.
REFERENCES
[1] Najma Nainan, Dynamic Response of Seismo-resistant
Building Frames International Journal of Engineering Science
and Technology (IJEST), Vol. 4 No.05, pp. 1865-1870, May
2012.
[2] Mete. A. Sozen Seismic Behavior of Reinforced Concrete
Building Chapter 13, CRC press LLC, 2004.
[3] Sozen, M. A., Earthquake Response of Buildings with
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Robust Walls Proceedings of Fifth Chilean Conference on
Seismology and Earthquake Eng., Santiago, 1989.
[4] Maximiliano ASTROZA, Mara Ofelia MORONI and Carlos
SALINAS Seismic Behavior Qualification Methodology For
Confined Masonry Buildings Proceedings of 12th World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering (12WCEE), Auckland,
N.Z, paper number 1123, 2000.
[5] Young-Hun Oh, Sang-Whan Han, and Yeoh-Soo Choi,
Evaluation and Improvement of Deformation Capacities of
Shear Walls Using Displacement-Based Seismic Design
International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
Vol.18, No.1E, pp.55-61, June 2006.
[6] R.K.L. Su, N.T.K. Lam, H.H. Tsang Seismic Drift Demand
and Capacity of Non-Seismically Designed Concrete Buildings
In Hong Kong Journal Articles Refereed Electronic Journal
of Structural Engineering, Vol. 8, pp. 110-120, 2008.
[7] Kenneth A. Gent Franch, Gian M. Giuliano Morbelli,
Maximiliano A. Astroza Inostroza, Roberto E. Gori, A seismic
vulnerability index for confined masonry shear wall buildings
and a relationship with the damage Journal of engineering
structure, 30, pp. 2605-2612, 2008.
[8] B. Kameshwari, G. Elangovan, p. Sivabala, G. Vaisakh
Dynamic Response Of High Rise Structures Under The
Influence Of Discrete Staggered Shear Walls International
journal of engineering science and technology, Vol 3, No 10,
October 2011.
[9] Elisa Lumantarna, Nelson Lam, Bidur Kafle, JohnWilson,
Displacement Controlled Behaviour of Asymmetrical
Buildings Australian Earthquake Engineering Society
Conference, 2008.
[10] IS: 1893 (Part 1), 2002, Criteria for Earthquake Resistant
Design of Structures general provisions and buildings, Bureau
of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
[11] Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER): NGA
Database, http://peer.berkeley.edu/
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