SSRG International Journal of Civil Engineering (SSRG-IJCE) – Volume 7 Issue 4 – April 2020

Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall System and

its Effectiveness in Highrise Buildings
Vedant Mishra#1, Dr. M.P. Mishra*2
1#
M-Tech Structural Engineering, RGPV University, Bhopal, M.P
2#
Assistant Engineer MPHID Board, Bhopal, M.P

Abstract multi-storey buildings. Multi-storey buildings may be

Shear wall have been the most common classified as low-rise buildings, high rise buildings
structure system used in the past for stabilizing and skyscrapers. Buildings with total height less than
building structures against horizontal forces caused 75 feet are termed as low-rise buildings or simply
by wind or earthquake. With the advent of reinforced multi-storey buildings. Buildings with total height
concrete, shear wall systems have become widely between 75 feet and 500 feet are categorized as high-
used to stabilized efficiently even the tallest building rise buildings. Buildings more than 500 feet high are
structures, by gaining concrete strength over categorized as skyscrapers. These high-rise structures
130MPa. A common shear wall system used for tall and skyscrapers have higher vertical loads as well as
office buildings groups shear wall arounds service higher lateral loads as compared to low rise structures.
core, elevator shafts and stairwells to form a stiff box
structure. In contrast with office buildings, high rise A. Loads acting on high rise buildings
residential buildings have less demands for elevators, The loads acting upon high rise buildings can be
lobbies and services and hence do not usually have broadly classified as vertical loads and horizontal
large stiff concrete shear wall boxes to resist loads.
horizontal forces a more common system will Vertical loads as shown in figure 1.A include the
incorporate a small box structure around a smaller loading due to the dead weight of the structure. It
number of elevator and stairwells and include arises from the weight of them individual
discrete shear walls between apartments. To design construction members like slabs, beams, columns etc.
shear wall arranged service core, the bending, shear, along with the finishing loads. Live loads also come
and warping stresses due to wind or earthquake under the category of vertical loads. Such load
loads are combined with stresses due to gravity depends on the purpose for which the structure is
loads, individual walls with in the box system can built. Also, it depends upon the number of
then be designed as unit length wall spanning either serviceable storeys in the structure.
floor to floor and between return walls.

Keywords — Shear wall, High rise building, Box

structure, Earthquake, Horizontal forces.

I. INTRODUCTION
Reinforced cement concrete (RCC) structures
constitutes of various concrete elements like columns,
beams and slabs etc. which are reinforced with steel
reinforcement bars. The concrete part of any member
is known to undertake the compressive loads and the
reinforcement bars provide the necessary tensile
strength to the structure and thus improve the A-Vertical Loading B-Horizontal Loading
strength of the structure on the whole. An RCC
framed structure is basically an assembly of slabs, Fig 1: Types of loading
beams, columns and foundation inter-connected to Horizontal loads as shown in figure 1.B include
each other as a unit. The load transfer in such a loading due to wind forces, earthquake forces and
structure takes place from the slabs to the beams, unexpected deflections. High rise buildings are
from the beams to the columns and then to the lower susceptible to oscillations due to wind and thus must
columns and finally to the foundation which in turn be investigated carefully for the sway behaviour by
transfers it to the soil. The floor area of an RCC experiments such as wind tunnel test. This type of
framed structure building is 10 to 12 percent more load increases proportionally with the height of the
than that of a load bearing walled building. Also, building as shown figure-2 The oscillations produced
RCC structures offer a more flexible planning area. by wind can lead to a high lateral deflection along
These RCC frames are used to build a variety of with lateral acceleration for the occupants, thereby
structures ranging from single storey bungalows to creating discomfort. Earthquake loads as shown in

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 SSRG International Journal of Civil Engineering (SSRG-IJCE) – Volume 7 Issue 4 – April 2020

figure-3 are originated at the time of tectonic

movements or volcanic explosions. This load is
transmitted to the structure at the foundation level of
the structure. This load is directly proportional to the
weight of the building. Any unexpected deflection
caused either by construction defect or uneven
settling of foundation is also responsible for
imparting lateral load on to the structure.

A-Frame tube structure B-Braced tube structure

Fig 4: A- World Trade Centre, Washington DC,
B. John Hancock Centre, Chicago
C. Bundled tube structure
Such structures are configured with multiple cells,
and provide vertical offsets without much loss in
efficiency. The principle behind the bundled tube
Fig 2: Earthquake Loading concept is that the interior rows of columns and
spandrels act as interior webs minimising shear lag
effects. Torsional loads are readily resisted and
greater spacing of columns is possible. Sears Tower
as shown in figure 5.A situated in Chicago is the best
example of bundled tube structure.
D. Tube in tube structure
It is basically a frame tube consisting of an outer
framed tube together with an internal core. The outer
tube plays a dominant role and has a greater
structural depth. Such structures tend to have
increased lateral stiffness. Figure 5.B shows an
example of tube in tube type of structure.
Fig 3: Wind Loading

II. TYPES OF HIGH-RISE STRUCTURES

A. Frame tube structure
It is a structure with closely spaced columns and
deep spandrel beams which are rigidly connected
together, with entire assemblage continuous along
each façade. This arrangement approximates a tube
cantilevered from the ground, as shown in figure 4.A.
B. Braced tube structure
Such structures are formed by introducing a A-Bundled tube structure B-Tube in tube
minimum number of diagonals on each façade which Structure
intersect at the column corners. An effective braced Fig 5: A- Sears Tower, Chicago, B- Tube in
tube action may be achieved by the replacement of Tube Structure
closely spaced columns by diagonal truss members.
The John Hancock Centre, Chicago is an example of E. Shear wall structure
braced tune structure. It is well known for its huge As the name suggests these structures comprise of
external X-bracing as shown in figure 4.B. shear walls. The vertical concrete shear walls may
serve both as architectural partitions and structural
components to carry the vertical and lateral loads.
The use of shear walls is suitable for high rise
buildings because of their high in-plane stiffness and
strength. Figure 6.A shows a building with shear wall.

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 SSRG International Journal of Civil Engineering (SSRG-IJCE) – Volume 7 Issue 4 – April 2020

F. Outrigger braced structure I. Hybrid structure

The central Core in such structures comprises of a Such structures are formed by the combination of
braced frame or shear walls with horizontal cantilever two or more above mentioned structural forms either
with outrigger trusses or girders connecting the core by direct combination or by adopting different forms
to the outer columns. The effective structural depth of in different parts of the structure as shown in Fig 8. A.
such structures is highly increased there by
decreasing the lateral deflection as well as moment.
Figure 6.B shows the key components of an outrigger
braced structure.

A-Hybrid Structure
Fig 8: New Plans for Project Terrace House by
Shigeru Ban, Japan.
A-Shear wall structure B-Outrigger braced
III. SHEAR WALL
structure
Fig 6: A- Shear wall structure, B- Outrigger
The lateral deflection in any one storey of a
braced
multi-storey or a high-rise building must not be more
G. Suspended structure than the total building height divided by 480. This is
necessary to avoid limitation of use of building,
These structures consist of core or cores with discomfort to occupants, degradation in the aesthetics
horizontal cantilever at roof levels to which vertical of the building etc. This can be achieved by
hangers of steel cable, rods or plates are attached. increasing the dimensions of the structural members,
The floor slabs are suspended from these hangers. but this cannot be adopted for high rise buildings
These are often restricted to lesser heights when open because it will increase the cost of construction, time
space is desired at the ground level. Skyline taken for construction and may also increase the
Westcoast building as shown in figure 7.A is situated height of individual storeys. Providing shear walls in
in Vancouver is an example of suspended structure. such structures can prove to be fruitful.
H. Space structure
Shear walls may be defined as the vertical
Such structures consist of 3D triangulated frames
plate-like reinforced concrete walls beginning from
which resist both gravity and lateral loads. Though
the foundation itself that are often constructed in high
these have complex geometries but they have
rise buildings to counter the horizontal loads which
relatively light weight and can be erected for greater
may act upon the structure. These horizontal or
heights. Bank of China tower of Hong Kong as
lateral loads most importantly include the earthquake
shown in figure 7.B is an example of space structure.
and wind load that act upon the structure. The
thickness of shear walls may vary from 150 mm to
400 mm depending on the height and type of the
structure and the intensity of lateral loading. These
may also be defined as vertically-oriented wide
beams that carry the earthquake load to the
foundation. Shear walls are known for providing
large strength and stiffness to buildings in the
direction of their orientation, which significantly
reduces the sway of the building and thereby reduces
damage to the structure and its components.
Provision of openings for doors and windows is
possible in shear walls but their size must be small
A-Suspended structure B-Space structure
and should be symmetrically located. In the last two
Fig 7: A-Skyline Westcoast building, B- Bank of
decades, shear walls have become an important part
China, Hong Kong
of mid and high-rise residential buildings. These

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 SSRG International Journal of Civil Engineering (SSRG-IJCE) – Volume 7 Issue 4 – April 2020

shear walls are known for reducing the lateral direction shall not be more than 450 mm in any case.
displacements under earthquake loads. It also specifies that the shear strength of shear walls
with openings must be checked along the critical
A. SHEAR WALL TYPES AND CONFIGURATIONS planes that pass through the openings.
Depending on the height and width of monolithic
shear walls, they can be classified as short, squat or A. Kumbhare and Saoji (2012)
cantilever. When the height to width ratio of a shear Analysed a G+11 RCC structure with different
wall is less than unity, it is termed as short shear wall. location of shear walls to check their effectiveness.
When the above-mentioned ratio is greater than one The results indicated that a significant change is
but less than three, then it is termed as squat shear observed in the values of shear strength and bending
wall. And when the height to width ratio of shear moments of columns at different levels of the
wall is more than three, it is termed as cantilever building with the change in shear wall location.
shear wall. Depending on the shape of shear wall as Placing shear wall away from centre of gravity
seen in the plan of the structure, shear walls may be resulted in increase in most of the members forces. It
categorised as plane, flanged, channel or core. was concluded that shear walls should be coinciding
with the centroid of the building.

B. Firoozabad et al. (2012)

Studied the seismic behaviour for a 25storey
building with different shear wall configurations. The
criteria for structural performance of shear wall were
represented by the deformation demand inherent in
A B C
the structure and the top storey drift. They showed
how different configurations of shear wall behaved
differently with up to 100% decrease in top story drift.
They elaborated that maximum drift limitation of
0.004h as per IS- 1893-2016 was satisfied using
ELCENTRO earthquake but not TABAS earthquake.
A major conclusion from their study was that the
quantity of shear wall cannot guarantee the seismic
D E behaviour of the building.
Fig 9: Shear wall configurations. A- core
shaped, B- Planar, C- L shaped, D- Flanged, E- C. Lakshmi et al. (2014)
Channel shear wall. Compared seven different shear wall
configurations of a sixteen storey G+15 RC building
The plan position of shear wall may be termed as with the model with no shear wall. Equivalent static
shear wall configuration. This configuration method, response spectrum method and static
influences the behaviour of the structure considerably. pushover analysis was done to study the lateral
Some of the common shear wall configurations are displacement and storey drift of the various model.
shown in figure-9. The choice of shear wall Their study concluded that the particular model
configuration is of great importance because it is showed best results when the shear walls were placed
responsible for providing flexural stiffness to the at the central core and exterior columns of the
structure. These shear walls may often require building plan. It was observed that the lateral
openings for doors and windows which are necessary displacement was reduced by up to 52% in this case.
for functional consideration. It was also observed that maximum reduction in the
drift values was obtained when the shear walls were
IV. LITERATURE REVIEW placed at the corners of the building. They also
Some of the work done by few scholars is been concluded that response spectrum analysis produced
mentioned below. more realistic results as compared to equivalent static
IS 13290:2016 specified various provisions for the analysis.
design of shear walls. Some of the basic general
requirements include: minimum wall thickness of D. Hiremath and Hussain (2014)
150 mm, reinforcements are to be provided in both Concluded that provision of shear walls at
longitudinal and transverse direction with a minimum adequate locations reduced the displacement due to
reinforcement of 0.0025 of the gross area in each earthquake substantially. Also, the lateral
direction, reinforcement must be provided in two displacement and storey drift varied with the
curtains when thickness of wall is more than 200 mm, thickness and location of shear wall. The 25 storey
diameter of bars in any part of the wall shall not building models have uniform and varying shear wall
exceed 1/10th of the thickness of that part and the thickness at different storey levels. It was concluded
maximum spacing of reinforcements in either that models with varying shear wall thickness offered

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 SSRG International Journal of Civil Engineering (SSRG-IJCE) – Volume 7 Issue 4 – April 2020

lesser storey drift as compared to model with uniform form technique dur to availability of high strength
shear wall thickness. Also, it was observed that very concrete as enabled the wall thickness to minimum
low storey drift ratio is found in the bottom storeys, and hence maximizing rentable floor area. The need
very high in the middle storeys and finally decreases for complex bolted or side welded steel connection
towards the top storeys. can also be avoided and well detailed reinforced
concrete can also develop about twice much damping
E. Suresh and Yadav (2015) as structure steel. This is an advantage where
Studied a G+20 RCC building for the optimum acceleration serviceability is critical limit state or for
shear wall location under lateral loading. They ultimate limit state design in earthquake prone areas.
analysed their structure for earthquake loads for area
lying in zones II and V. They also studied the effect REFERENCES
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