Orientation and Location of Shear Walls in RC Buildings to Control Deflection and Drifts

Abstract

Controlling drift and deflection caused by lateral loads such as wind load and earthquake load is a major concern while constructing high-rise structures. To resist the lateral loads, one of the most feasible and commonly used mechanism are shear wall systems. Shear walls provide high plane stiffness and strength which can be utilized to resist large horizontal loads and support gravity loads simultaneously. While placing the shear walls in a building structure, a major issue is the orientation and location which plays a vital role in seismic performance of such system against lateral loads. If shear walls are not placed properly, they may generate eccentricity in building which is the main cause for torsion. In this study attempt has been carried out find out the proper orientation and location of shear walls in RC building to control drift and deflection by modeling and analyzing of building with different shear wall positions. For this purpose, a 10 storey RC building has been modeled in computer application software ETABS with different locations of shear walls (i.e. shear wall at center, Shear wall at sides & inner wall, Shear wall at periphery, Shear wall at Corners and Shear wall at Center & Edges ). The framed structure is subjected to lateral and gravity loading in accordance with BNBC 2017 and the analytical results of each model has been compared with that of the bare frame in terms of storey shear, storey drift, storey displacement, stiffness, torsional irregularity, time period and mode shapes