Study of Multistoried Building With and Without Shear Wall Using Software

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative explanation of four structural designs of a G+20 multistorey building with the view of determining the influence of shear wall layout and the positioning of openings on the overall structural behavior. Model-1 utilized in the study is a typical structure in which shear walls are not in use whereas models 2, 3, and 4 have shear walls but with careful openings at the front, back, and all sides respectively. Structural performance of both models was compared at all the levels of storeys in terms of important structural characteristics, i.e. lateral load resistance capacity and lateral displacements. The outcome suggests that performance of the models varies greatly. Consistently, model-1 had the lowest stiffness and the highest deformation which indicates the significance of shear walls in increasing stability of structures. Better responses were found on Model-2 and Model-3 but the position of opens affected their outputs. The model- 4 which had opening in all the sides had the greatest values in response especially in upper storeys indicating a compromise between architectural flexibility and structural efficiency. This paper highlights the importance of shear wall layout in designing high rise buildings and gives a glimpse into the future of structural design and optimization of structural forces performance taking into account the deficiencies of a practical real world design project. These results can be used as an important guide to engineers and other architects in designing earthquake-resistant buildings.

Introduction

Shear walls are vertical structural elements, typically made of reinforced concrete or masonry, designed to resist lateral forces such as wind or seismic loads. Their inclusion significantly improves structural stiffness, strength, and helps control lateral displacement and inter-storey drift, ensuring overall building stability. When properly placed—at the perimeter, around the core, or symmetrically—they minimize torsional effects and enhance structural integrity.

II. Literature Review

• Dashti et al. (2014): Validated a model for predicting monotonic and cyclic behavior of shear walls under various failure modes (shear, flexure, etc.). Accurate local and global behavior predictions were achieved.

• Jin et al. (2023): Investigated the effect of axial load ratios and horizontal reinforcement on RC shear wall failure. Found that increasing horizontal reinforcement improves shear capacity and reduces brittle failure.

• Zhang et al. (2022): Identified shear-span ratio as the most critical factor influencing wall drift and failure mode. Developed an accurate model for shear/flexural strength and a GUI design tool for practical use.

• Mosoarca (2014): Developed a theoretical method for estimating maximum seismic forces causing concrete crushing in shear walls with staggered openings, validated experimentally.

• Mangalathu (2020): Applied machine learning (Random Forest) to classify shear wall failure modes with 86% accuracy, using key parameters like aspect ratio and reinforcement index. Proposed an open-source predictive tool for engineers.

III. Methodology

A comparative analysis was conducted using STAAD.Pro on G+20 RC buildings under various loading conditions (dead, live, wind, seismic) per IS 875 and IS 1893 codes. Four models were tested to assess the impact of shear wall presence and opening location:

• Model 1: No shear walls (control)

• Model 2: Shear wall with front opening

• Model 3: Shear wall with back opening

• Model 4: Shear wall with openings on front, back, and sides

All models share the same geometry, dimensions, and material properties for valid comparison.

IV. Results

1. Storey Drift:

• Model 1 (no shear walls): Highest drift (max: 3.3 mm), exceeding safety limits.

• Model 2 (front opening): Reduced drift (max: 2.1 mm).

• Model 3 (back opening): Best performance (max: 1.5 mm; min: 0.3 mm).

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Conclusion

The following conclusions can be observed: 1) Swinging and Slide of Plot • The lateral displacement and the story drift was continuously growing with the storeys till the end storeys (Story 1-Story 21) which is as per the behavior that would be induced as a result of lateral loads. • Model -1 did not have a shear wall or small shear resistance and hence it represented consistently the smallest since it released the maximum flexibility of displacement and drift. • The placement of optimal shear walls in terms of a reduced or even unlimited number of openings may have occurred in model-3 as compared to the others since this resulted in the model being less displaced and drifting thus demonstrating a high lateral stiffness. • These differences were indicative of more occurrence of higher levels hence a potential representation of the relevance of designing shear walls in tall buildings. 2) According to Base Shear and Distribution of Force In a modern system, data needs to speak directly to the user. • Better distribution of base shear was also discovered in the models that employed strategically positioned shear walls (Models 3 and 4) pointing out a higher ability to resist earthquake and lateral forces caused by wind. • The distribution of force in Model-1 was not effective as there was no shear-resisting or the actual position was poor hence becoming easily susceptible to a seismic movement. 3) Natural Frequency The natural Frequency of oscillatory motion, and Mode Shapes • The more the stiffness (Model 3 and 4), the higher is the natural frequency that can equate to less exposure to the resonance aspect in case of seismic activity. • Examining mode shapes revealed that the configuration and the stiffness pattern significantly affect dynamic behavior and through the storeys, stiffer models will tend to behave more similarly to one another. 4) The effect of an opening in shear wall. • Shear walls also had the result of reduced lateral stiffness and shear capacity due to openings as is the case with Model 2 and 4 which depicted openings in the shear walls. • In this case, it is implying that architectural demands (e.g. windows/doors) must possess a sort of fine balance with the Shear wall structural integrity. 5) The impacts of Shear Wall Setup • The pattern of central and symmetrical locating of shear walls (especially Model-3) were better in the aspects of displacement, drift and base shear resistance. • Asymmetrical orientation or misplaced orientations (e.g. in Model-2) added the torsional effects, or otherwise reduced the efficiency of the building as a whole proving once again the usefulness of well placed shear walls deployment on multistorey buildings. 6) Failure Modes during Lateral and seismic loads • Model-1 is prone to soft-storey-failure by the reason that it is more likely to develop large inter-storey-drift caused by seismic excitation and it is not laterally fixed reducing its chance of occurrence. • The better model-designed shear wall structures have been realized to withstand these kind of failures and this gives a suggestion that some of the critical failure processes may be avoided through proper detailing and design. 7) Structural-design effects • This demonstrates the sensitivity of the upper storey replies to the modeling assumptions that leads to the requirement of decent representation of high rise building analysis. • The parameters variation of a model when referring to thickness of wall, opening size or location of walls is minimal, but can vary substantially in line with the code of setting of performance metrics. • Model-3 was determined to be the most structurally efficient in terms of stiffness, resistance and dynamic performance.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Ravi Dipak Hirurkar , Prof. Ms. S. C. Sagane. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.