Shear walls RC Frame interaction Lateral forces

The usefulness of structural walls in the framing of buildings has long been recognized. It is generally preferred to use shear wall in combination with moment resisting frame. In the present study, an effort is also made to investigate the shear wall-RC frame interaction using 2-D modeling of 20, 30 and 35 storey RC frame building with shear wall. In equivalent simplified 2-D model, two exterior frames with shear wall modeled as single frame with double stiffness, strength and weight. The interior frames without shear wall are modeled as a single frame with equivalent stiffness, strength and weight. The modeled frames are connected with rigid link at each floor level. Using 2-D plane frame model the lateral force distribution between Exterior frame with shear wall and Interior frame without shear wall is investigated. From the analysis, it is observed that up to bottom seven/eight storey more than 50% load is taken by frame with shear wall and the lower most three storeys take about 75% of total storey shear.