INPLANE STIFFNESS OF SHEAR WALLS WITH OPENINGS

In this paper, a new method is presented to determine the in-plane sti ffness of shear walls with openings, in which the spandrels are assume d flexible, and can translate and rotate under lateral load. The in-pl ane stiffnesses of shear walls with openings obtained by using the new method are generally much different from the results obtained by the well known three methods. However, the inplane stiffnesses of the wall s determined by linear elastic finite element method are generally in good agreement with the results obtained by the new method. To estimat e the in-plane stiffness of shear walls with openings, design charts h ave been developed by employing the new method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ltd. All rights reserved.