ETABS MODELLING TIPS 2

1. Project information. Company Name: COMPANY NAME. Leave the rest blank.

2. Using ACI 318, for Middle East (where Fy=460 Mpa) Strength of shear reinforcement
in all concrete to be 420000 (in kN-m).

3. All diaphragms to be semi-rigid.

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4. All Earthquake loads to have same bottom story and top story at OHT

5. For UBC 97, LLNR should also be part of the mass source with a factor 1. This
includes mechanical room etc. (check all models). LLNR includes only MEP loads.

6. Manual meshing: Walls to be meshed to the floor meshing. Keep same wall meshing
all the way.

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7. If no diaphragms are assigned to the slabs there will be no wind loads action on the
structure. Take care of this.
8. Response spectrum base shear are scaled to 100 % or 90 % in Ex, Ey load
combinations. Use Standard Calculations Sheet to keep record of this and further
take approval from the Client.
9. Ductile Design: As this demands a greater amount of steel that is not always easy to
satisfy take confirmation from the Head Engineer of which kind of ductility design is
required. In most cases you will need to make sure the design of the concrete frame
is done as “sway intermediate” and NOT “sway special”. Do this by selecting ALL
and assign over write “sway intermediate”.

10. Walls that carry Columns or Transfer Girders: mesh the wall to each side of the
loaded point and provide a different pier label, as the reinforcement in the wall at
this location shall be designed separately (and detailed like column reinforcement).

11. Make sure that all cores have the openings in the correct location.

12. Spandrel Labels. Use same name on all floors.

13. Retaining wall has the same pier label all the way.
14. Retaining walls to be meshed at slab nodes. Otherwise the load will come down on
the raft too concentrated.

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15. Where expansion joints connect two buildings with a corbel it is better to delete a
small portion of the slab (say 100 mm, to account for the gap), assign supports in Z
direction and add the gravity loads from the reactions on the other block.
16. Diaphragms: One building block should have only ONE rigid diaphragm assigned.
Where two or more buildings share a common podium/basement the podium will
have a single diaphragm and, each independent building block above should be
assigned a different Diaphragm. For example:
D1 :Basement+Podium
D2 :Block A
D3 :Bock B
17. Pier & Spandrel labels: Please check that pier and spandrel labels are not with the
same name and not be connected. You cannot “interrupt” a label:

18. Openings in Core walls: a core wall cannot be without door openings. Notice that
the location of the door openings often differs from floor to floor.

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19. Create an elevation for each wall. Each elevation should carry the name of the wall.
In this way you can check all openings, floor by floor, wall by wall.

20. Alternatively, you may create developed elevations labelling the whole core.

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21. Adjust all pier labels properly. This is a cause of many erratic results when designing
walls. When designing make sure that labels are assigned consistently. It is better to
delete them all and assign NONE label and re label all over again. Labeling HAS TO BE
neat. “I adjusted the pier and spandrel labels in a model and I got a lot of shear
failures”.

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