Behavior of Shear Wall with Base Opening

Provision of parking may require an opening to be kept at the base of a shear wall. In this paper, an attempt is made to establish the range of base opening that may be allowed without significantly affecting the strength and stiffness. The behavior of planar and box shear wall with varying percentages of base opening has been studied and compared to that of a shear wall without opening. Finite element package ANSYS has been used for modeling. A set of non-dimensional graphs has been prepared featuring important parameters which will guide the designer to choose an appropriate opening width. It is observed that the rate of decrease of stiffnessis is relatively low for up to 60% base opening. Beyond this limit, strength and stiffness degradations are excessive. Based on the findings of the study, it has been recommended that in high-rise constructions the provision of a base opening up to 50% of the length of the wall may be considered as a feasible option