RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design

CONNECT Edition Update 6 – Release 15.06

RAM Structural System

Last Updated: October 17, 2017
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RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 2 RAM Structural System

 Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................ 6
Chapter 2: Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology ....................................................... 7
2.1 General .........................................................................................................................................................................................7
2.2 Design Loads ............................................................................................................................................................................. 7
2.3 Walls ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
2.4 Wall Design Groups ................................................................................................................................................................ 8
2.5 Wall Panels and Wall Panel Groups ................................................................................................................................ 9
2.6 Section Cuts .............................................................................................................................................................................12
2.6.1 Manual Creation of Section Cuts .........................................................................................................12
2.6.2 Automatic Generation of Section Cuts ............................................................................................. 14
2.6.3 Section Cut Conventions ..........................................................................................................................15
2.6.4 Section Cut Local Coordinate System ............................................................................................... 16
2.6.5 Section Cut Forces .....................................................................................................................................17
2.7 Strength Calculations ..........................................................................................................................................................17
2.7.1 Axial-Flexural Strength ...........................................................................................................................18
2.7.2 Shear Evaluation ........................................................................................................................................18
2.8 Bar Pattern Templates ....................................................................................................................................................... 18
2.9 Bar Patterns ............................................................................................................................................................................ 19
2.10 Design Process ........................................................................................................................................................................ 19
2.10.1 Reinforcement Generation ....................................................................................................................19
2.10.2 Reinforcement Optimization ................................................................................................................20
2.11 Coupling Beams .....................................................................................................................................................................20
Chapter 3: RAM Concrete Shear Wall Commands .................................................................... 22
3.1 Criteria ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 22
3.1.1 Code ..................................................................................................................................................................22
3.1.2 Design Criteria ............................................................................................................................................22
3.1.3 General Criteria ..........................................................................................................................................22
3.1.4 Coupling Beam Criteria ...........................................................................................................................22
3.2 Assign ..........................................................................................................................................................................................23
3.2.1 Assign Wall Design Groups Dialog .....................................................................................................23
3.2.2 Assign Autogenerated Section Cuts Dialog .................................................................................... 23
3.2.3 Manually Add Section Cuts ....................................................................................................................24
3.2.4 Delete Section Cuts Dialog .....................................................................................................................24
3.2.5 Change Section Cut ................................................................................................................................... 24
3.2.6 Assign Hinge ................................................................................................................................................. 25
3.2.7 Section Cut List Dialog ............................................................................................................................ 26
3.2.8 Assign Bar Pattern Templates Dialog ...............................................................................................26
3.2.9 Assign Bar Patterns Dialog ....................................................................................................................27
3.2.10 Assign Manual Reinforcement .............................................................................................................27
3.2.11 Assign Wall Panel Priority .....................................................................................................................28
3.2.12 Assign Coupling Beams ...........................................................................................................................29
3.2.13 Assign DXF Elevation Numbers ...........................................................................................................30
3.2.14 Edit Bar Pattern Templates Dialog .................................................................................................... 30

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 3 RAM Structural System

 3.3 Load Combinations .............................................................................................................................................................. 30
3.3.1 Code Generated Combinations ............................................................................................................31
3.3.2 User Defined ................................................................................................................................................ 31
3.4 Process ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 31
3.4.1 Design All ...................................................................................................................................................... 31
3.4.2 View/Update ............................................................................................................................................... 32
3.4.3 Copy Reinforcing ....................................................................................................................................... 32
3.4.4 Freeze Reinforcing ....................................................................................................................................32
3.4.5 Clear Reinforcing .......................................................................................................................................33
Chapter 4: The View/Update Dialog ......................................................................................... 34
4.1 3-D View Pane ......................................................................................................................................................................... 36
4.1.1 Stress Contours ........................................................................................................................................... 39
4.1.2 Mesh Options ................................................................................................................................................40
4.2 Information Pane ................................................................................................................................................................... 41
4.2.1 Axial/Flexural .............................................................................................................................................. 42
4.2.2 Shear ................................................................................................................................................................ 43
4.2.3 Reinforcing ....................................................................................................................................................44
4.2.4 Boundary Elements ................................................................................................................................... 48
4.2.5 Coupling Beams ...........................................................................................................................................50
4.2.6 Design Warnings .........................................................................................................................................54
4.2.7 Design Sketch Pane ....................................................................................................................................55
4.3 Actions/Status .........................................................................................................................................................................57
4.3.1 Optimize ......................................................................................................................................................... 57
4.3.2 Analyze ............................................................................................................................................................58
4.3.3 Update Database .........................................................................................................................................58
4.3.4 Reports ............................................................................................................................................................58
4.4 Status Bar .................................................................................................................................................................................. 59
Chapter 5: RAM Concrete Shear Wall Reports .........................................................................60
5.1 Wall Design Group Properties ........................................................................................................................................ 60
5.2 Wall Panel Properties ......................................................................................................................................................... 61
5.3 Section Cut Forces ................................................................................................................................................................ 61
5.3.1 Section Cut Forces - Horizontal ...........................................................................................................61
5.3.2 Section Cut Forces - Vertical .................................................................................................................62
5.4 Section Cut Segment Forces .............................................................................................................................................62
Chapter 6: Getting Started Quickly ..........................................................................................64
6.1 Basic Design Procedure Steps .......................................................................................................................................... 64
6.2 Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model ....................................................................................................... 65
Chapter 7: ACI Technical Notes ............................................................................................... 76
7.1 Design Criteria ........................................................................................................................................................................ 76
7.2 Clear Cover .............................................................................................................................................................................. 77
7.3 Reinforcement Spacing Limits ........................................................................................................................................ 77
7.4 Reinforcement Ratio Limits ............................................................................................................................................. 79
7.5 Bar Placement ........................................................................................................................................................................ 80
7.6 Axial/Flexural Strength ..................................................................................................................................................... 81
7.7 Special Boundary Element Check .................................................................................................................................. 83
7.7.1 Limiting Neutral Axis Calculation ...................................................................................................... 84
7.7.2 Required Horizontal Extents of Boundary ..................................................................................... 86

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 4 RAM Structural System

 7.8 Shear Strength ....................................................................................................................................................................... 86
7.9 Coupling Beam Design ........................................................................................................................................................89
7.9.1 Flexural Strength .......................................................................................................................................90
7.9.2 Shear Strength ............................................................................................................................................ 90
7.9.3 Transverse Reinforcement ....................................................................................................................91
7.9.4 Diagonal Reinforcement .........................................................................................................................91
7.10 ACI-318 2014 .......................................................................................................................................................................... 91
7.10.2 Special Boundary Element Check ........................................................................................................92
7.10.3 Limiting Boundary Neutral Axis Calculation ..................................................................................92
7.10.4 Minimum boundary thickness ..............................................................................................................93
Chapter 8: BS8110 Technical Notes ..........................................................................................94
8.1 Design Criteria ........................................................................................................................................................................ 94
8.2 Axial-Flexural Design ..........................................................................................................................................................94
8.3 Shear Design ........................................................................................................................................................................... 94
8.3.1 Assumptions ................................................................................................................................................95
8.3.2 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................95
8.4 Serviceability & Detailing Checks ................................................................................................................................... 96
8.5 Fire Resistance .......................................................................................................................................................................97
8.6 Exposure ...................................................................................................................................................................................97
Chapter 9: CP 65 Technical Notes ............................................................................................98
9.1 Differences between BS8110 and CP65 ......................................................................................................................98
Chapter 10: AS3600 Technical Notes ....................................................................................... 99
10.1 Design Criteria ........................................................................................................................................................................ 99
10.2 Axial-Flexural Design ..........................................................................................................................................................99
10.3 Shear Design ........................................................................................................................................................................ 100
10.3.1 Assumptions ............................................................................................................................................. 100
10.3.2 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................. 100
10.4 Serviceability & Detailing Checks ............................................................................................................................... 101
10.5 Fire Resistance .................................................................................................................................................................... 101
Chapter 11: Eurocode 2 Technical Notes ................................................................................ 102
11.1 Axial-Flexural Design ....................................................................................................................................................... 102
11.2 Shear Design ........................................................................................................................................................................ 102
11.3 Detailing and Serviceability Checks ............................................................................................................................102
Chapter 12: GB 50010 Technical Notes ...................................................................................104
12.1 Limitations .............................................................................................................................................................................104
12.2 Design Principles ............................................................................................................................................................... 104
12.2.1 Code Clauses Implemented ................................................................................................................. 105

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 5 RAM Structural System

 Introduction
1
The RAM Concrete Shear Wall module is a design program within the RAM Structural System specialized for the
design of concrete walls for gravity, wind, and earthquake loads. The module complements the other design
modules within RAM Concrete: RAM Concrete Analysis, RAM Concrete Beam, and RAM Concrete Column. The
Shear Wall Design module utilizes model geometry, loadings, and criteria from the RAM Structural System as
well as design forces and displacements from the RAM Frame module.
A brief description of the content in each chapter of this manual is provided below.
Chapter 2 (on page 7) discusses the concepts and terminology the user needs to be familiar with when using
the program.
Chapter 3 (on page 22) provides an overview of the program menus and commands.
Chapter 4 (on page 34) discusses the View/Update command, a powerful means of reviewing with and
modifying the design results.
Chapter 5 (on page 60) gives a detailed explanation of the output reports available in RAM Concrete Shear
Wall.
Chapter 6 (on page 64) presents the most basic steps required to take a model to design completion. This
chapter is intended to serve as a reference in getting up and running quickly with the module.
Chapters 7 - 12 provide a detailed look at the technical assumptions made by the Concrete Beam module,
primarily code interpretation, for the ACI (on page 76), BS8110 (on page 94), CP65 (on page 98), AS3600
(on page 99), EC2 (on page 102) and GB50010 (on page 104) design codes, respectively. It is crucial that the
engineer reads and understands this chapter so as to be aware of how these assumptions affect the design
results.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 6 RAM Structural System

 Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
2
This section introduces the user to fundamental concepts necessary to understand the program documentation
contained in this manual. Terminology plays a particularly important role in documenting the Shear Wall Design
module. There are many terms contained in this manual that have historically been used in varying contexts in
relation to concrete wall design (e.g., "wall"). Furthermore, there are instances within this document in which
certain terms are intended to denote a RAM Structural System-specific concept (e.g., a "wall" as created in RAM
Modeler).
In order to alleviate confusion, whenever a term is used in this manual in a way that represents a RAM Structural
System concept, the word or phrase will be capitalized. Thus, for example, when referring to walls that are
created in RAM Modeler, "Wall" will appear capitalized to distinguish the usage from walls as referred to in a
general sense.

2.1 General
The RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design module uses the model geometry and material properties in RAM Modeler,
the analysis results from RAM Frame, and the design criteria specified in RAM Concrete to optimize or perform
the design check of vertical and horizontal reinforcing in concrete walls. In general, the axial-flexure, shear, and
prescriptive code requirements are evaluated at Section Cuts (or stations) within Wall Design Groups that have
been created from the Walls. If any of the design checks fail, the Section Cut is flagged as having failed the design.
The Concrete Shear Wall Design Module allows reinforcing to be either explicitly defined and evaluated, or
automatically chosen by the program based on the applied loads and design code requirements. When
reinforcement is selected by the program, only distributed reinforcement will be designed. That is, the program
will not choose larger amounts of steel in localized areas (at the ends of Wall Panels for instance). However, the
user may at any time specify customized reinforcing to be evaluated by the program using various commands.

2.2 Design Loads

The design loads used in the Shear Wall Design module are taken from the RAM Frame module. Thus, a RAM
Frame analysis must be performed prior to designing wall reinforcing in the Shear Wall Design module. The load
cases analyzed in the most recent RAM Frame analysis will be available for use in the Load Combination menu.
The load cases are combined according to the automatically-generated or user defined load combinations in the
Load Combinations menu. See the Load Combination Generator manual for additional information.
The user should be aware of a special consideration regarding live load reduction. In RAM Frame, the portion of
the live load acting on a wall that is delivered from two-way slabs is not included in the reducible area for the

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 7 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Walls

live load reduction calculation. Thus, absent any other action, the live load forces in walls that support two-way
slabs will be larger than if all tributary area for the wall had been considered in the live load reduction
calculation. To overcome this, the user may directly assign a live load reduction factor to a member in RAM
Modeler, which will then override the value automatically calculated by Concrete Analysis.
The user should be aware that, since RAM Frame loads are necessary to design a wall, Walls assigned as
"Gravity" in RAM Modeler will not be available for design in the Shear Wall Design module.

2.3 Walls
Walls are assigned in RAM Modeler when creating the building geometry. Walls are the most basic building
block used by the Shear Wall Design module to create more meaningful physical entities such as Wall Panels and
Wall Design Groups, which will be discussed in the ensuing sections. Please note that the Shear Wall Design
module recognizes only Walls assigned as 'Frame' members and only Walls assigned as material 'Concrete'. For
more information on assigning Walls and Wall properties, refer to the RAM Modeler technical manual.

2.4 Wall Design Groups

A Wall Design Group is a user-assigned collection of Walls (Walls are created in RAM Modeler). The RAM
Concrete Shear Wall Design module places no restrictions on the manner in which Walls can be grouped into
Wall Design Groups. A single Wall Design Group may contain Walls that are at different levels, not in contact
with one another, or both.
The purpose of a Wall Design Group is to divide the wall system in the RAM model into a number of individual
wall groups, cores, or stacks that can be designed separately from one another. The Wall Design Group can be
thought of as any collection of walls for which the reinforcement can be completely designed and all code checks
performed independently of any other wall in the building (see Figure below).

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 8 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Wall Panels and Wall Panel Groups

Figure 1: Possible choice of Wall Design Group assignments.

A detailed list of the effects of a Wall Design Group assignment is given below:
• All strength and prescriptive code checks will be evaluated for one Wall Design Group at a time.
• Any code checks that involve wall or opening geometry will consider only the geometry within the respective
Wall Design Group.
• All Section Cuts that are automatically generated will not extend past a Wall Design Group boundary.
• Any user assigned Section Cuts are not allowed to extend past the Wall Design Group boundary.
• Coupling Beams may not extend across two or more Wall Design Groups.
• When executing the View/Update command, only the design information pertaining to the selected Wall
Design Group will be displayed, reported, and available for editing.
• All optimized reinforcement generated by the Shear Wall Design module will be cut off at the Wall Design
Group boundaries.
• When converting Bar Patterns into actual reinforcing bars, the Wall Design Group boundaries serve as edges
of the bar pattern being placed.

2.5 Wall Panels and Wall Panel Groups

After a Wall Design Group assignment has been made, the program internally forms the individual Walls within
the Wall Design Group into Wall Panels. A Wall Panel is a planar, contiguous collection of one or more Walls of
the same thickness at a single Story, all in the same Wall Design Group (see Figure below).

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 9 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Wall Panels and Wall Panel Groups

Figure 2: Wall numbers 6, 7, and 8 at Story 4th, forming a single Wall Panel.

Wall Panels have two primary purposes in the Shear Wall Design module. First, Wall Panels are the entity to
which the user assigns Bar Patterns. Following from this, a Wall Panel defines the boundary over which Bar
Patterns are converted to actual reinforcing bars.

(A) (B)

Figure 3: A) Bar Pattern assigned to Wall Panel (vertical only for clarity) B) Vertical distributed reinforcing
generated from Bar Pattern

It is recognized that two or more planar Walls with the same thickness could be modeled in one line, rather than
using a single longer wall element. In this scenario, it is unlikely that the engineer has intended for the
boundaries of the adjacent Walls to serve as true physical boundaries to the reinforcing placement, but rather it
was simply necessary to model the Walls in this manner. By placing the reinforcing based on the Wall Panel
extents, rather than the Wall extents, unnecessary breaks in placement of distributed reinforcing are avoided
(see Figure below).

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 10 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Wall Panels and Wall Panel Groups

(A) (B)

The second purpose that Wall Panels serve is that collections of Wall Panels are grouped into Wall Panel Groups
by the program. A Wall Panel Group is a collection of Wall Panels within the same Wall Design Group at a single
story that are contiguous. The significance of a Wall Panel Group is that no Section Cut, either auto-generated or
manually created, is allowed to extend beyond a Wall Panel Group boundary. Therefore each Section Cut in the
model “belongs” to only a single Wall Panel Group.

Figure 4: Wall Panel Groups

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 11 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Section Cuts

Figure 5: Wall Panel (orange) and Wall Panel Group (yellow and orange)

2.6 Section Cuts

A Section Cut is a single or multiple segment cross section within a Wall Design Group at which design forces
are formulated and wall capacity evaluated. Section Cuts in the Shear Wall Design module are analogous to
stations in the Concrete Beam and Concrete Column modules. Geometrically, a Section Cut is the intersection of a
horizontal or vertical plane with some portion of a Wall Design Group. A Section Cut may be a single, planar
segment or a multi-segment, two-dimensional entity (see Figure below).

Figure 6: Three separate horizontal Section Cuts within a Wall Design Group.

2.6.1 Manual Creation of Section Cuts

As with the RAM Frame Section Forces module, Section Cuts may be manually created by the user wherever
desired in the Concrete Shear Wall Design module. An advanced option has been implemented in the Concrete

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 12 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Section Cuts

Shear Wall Design module that allows horizontal sections to extend through all walls in a Wall Design Group at
the level specified. This is shown in Figure below.

Figure 7: a) Section Cut as drawn by the user, with option to include all Walls in Wall Design Group turned on
(elevation view)

Figure 8: b) Resulting Section Cuts produced Manually assigned Section Cuts with option to include all Walls in Wall
Design Group.

In reference to the above Figure, note that three separate Section Cuts have been created by issuing the "Add
Section Cut" command: SC1H:4, SC1H:5, and SC1H:6. Each of these Section Cuts is a separate physical entity.
Changes to SC1H:4, for instance, will not affect Section Cuts SC1H:5 and SC1H:6. Also, a completely separate set
of design checks will be performed at each Section Cut.
Further note that Section Cut SC1H:4, which is C-shaped in plan, consists of three segments. Each segment is
denoted by placing an “A”, “B”, and “C” at the end of the Section Cut label. This is typical of the Shear Wall Design

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 13 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Section Cuts

module. Section Cuts that intersect multiple Walls are split up into Section Cut Segments at each Wall. This is
done for a few purposes:
1. For design codes that require shear strength to be evaluated in a planar sense (e.g., ACI 318), the Section Cut
Segment is the entity for which the shear strength calculation is done.
2. When reviewing the design in View/Update, Section Cut Segments are the entity which the user selects. This
allows the information for the corresponding Wall Panel to be brought up for review and revision, allowing
for greater control and flexibility.
Note that Section Cut Segments have no bearing on:
1. The axial-flexural design. The axial-flexural interaction calculations are performed for the entire Section Cut.
2. The moving of a Section Cut. When the location of a multi-segment Section Cut is changed, the entire Section
Cut moves as one.

2.6.2 Automatic Generation of Section Cuts

Section Cuts can be automatically generated by the program for an entire Wall Design Group at a time. The
process employed uses the geometry of the Walls and openings in each Wall Design Group to place sections at
locations likely to be of interest to the engineer when performing the design checks. Conceptually, this includes:
• Tops and bottoms of stories
• Edges of wall panels
• Edges of wall openings
The user may modify the criteria used to generate Section Cuts. Furthermore, the user may edit or delete any of
the generated Section Cuts just as if they were manually assigned.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 14 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Section Cuts

Figure 9: Automatically generated Section Cuts

2.6.3 Section Cut Conventions

Because the Concrete Shear Wall Design module reports the Section Cut forces in both the local axis and the
global axis system, it is important that the conventions for these axes is clearly understood.
The global axis system is referred to with the standard X and Y. Vx is a shear force in the direction of the positive
global X-axis, while Mxx refers to a moment about the positive global X-axis (right hand rule).
The local axes are referred to as major and minor. The local convention is summarized in the table and figure
below.

P axial force where a +P is compressive.

Vmaj Shear force in the local major direction

Vmin Shear force in the local minor direction

Mmaj Moment acting in the local major direction (about the + minor axis)

Mmin Moment acting in the local minor direction (about the - major axis)

Mu Resultant of Mmaj and Mmin which acts at an angle β CCW from + major axis

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 15 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Section Cuts

Horizontal Section Cuts

Figure 10: Local axes for horizontal Section Cut

Vertical Section Cuts

Figure 11: Local axes for vertical Section Cut

2.6.4 Section Cut Local Coordinate System

The local major and minor directions for a Section Cut are determined differently based on whether the Section
Cut is oriented horizontally or vertically. For horizontal Section Cuts, the major direction is chosen in the
direction of the longest contiguous horizontal segment of wall. More specifically, the Section Cut is rotated
clockwise about the global Z-axis from its global orientation until the longest segment is parallel to the global X-
axis (see Figure below).

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 16 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Strength Calculations

Figure 12: Global axes (X, Y) and local major and minor directions for a horizontal Section Cut.

For vertical Section Cuts, the local major axis coincides with the global Z-axis. The local minor axis is 90 degrees
CCW from the local major axis.

2.6.5 Section Cut Forces

The forces acting at a Section Cut are based on the RAM Frame analysis results. The forces acting on each
segment of the Section Cut are first determined by integrating the wall stresses determined from the RAM Frame
finite element analysis along the entire segment. Next, the forces acting at each segment are resolved at the
geometric center of the Section Cut to form a single set of globally-oriented forces (see Figure below).

Figure 13: Forces at individual Section Cut Segments resolved for global Section Cut forces.

The Section Cut forces are calculated for each load case that was considered in the most recent RAM Frame
analysis. From this, combined loads are calculated using the load combinations selected by the user in the Shear
Wall Design module. The Shear Wall Design module deals solely with combined loads and does not consider
individual load cases. The resulting array of combined loads at each Section Cut is used for the design checks.

2.7 Strength Calculations

The RAM Shear Wall Design module performs biaxial axial/flexure and in-plane shear strength calculations for
each Section Cut.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 17 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Bar Pattern Templates

2.7.1 Axial-Flexural Strength

A three-dimensional axial-flexural interaction capacity surface is created for each Section Cut using the
provisions of the selected design code. Each combined load that was generated for the Section Cut is evaluated
with respect to the capacity surface and an interaction value is determined.

2.7.2 Shear Evaluation

The method used to calculate the shear strength at a Section Cut depends on the method employed by the design
code being considered. There are two approaches for evaluating the shear capacity of a section: Shear on Entire
Section and Shear on Segments. A discussion of each follows.

Shear on If calculating the shear strength by this method, the entire Section Cut is considered as a single
Entire unit. The direction of the resultant shear force on the Section Cut is determined. Then the planar
Section shear capacity of each panel that intersects the Section Cut is calculated and multiplied by the
respective directional cosine to determine the strength contribution in the direction of the
resultant shear. This is repeated for each Load Combination.
Shear on This method evaluates the shear on Section Cut Segments, rather than on an entire Section Cut
Segments (See Section 2.6.1 for a discussion of Section Cut Segments). A Section Cut Segment will always
represent an extent of wall cross section of uniform thickness and a single reinforcing pattern,
for which the shear strength can be easily determined. The shear strength of each Section Cut
Segment within a Section Cut is calculated and compared to the combined loads acting on the
Section Cut Segment. Shear is evaluated only for the direction in the plane of the segment. To
determine which method is utilized for a particular code, see the technical notes for the
respective design code.

2.8 Bar Pattern Templates

A Bar Pattern Template is a range of bar sizes and bar spacings the user wishes to consider during the design
process for a particular Wall Design Group. A Bar Pattern Template designation conforms to the following
format:

BPT1
#6 - #9 @ 15" - 6" - 3" V
#5 - #7 @ 15" - 6" - 3" H

where:

BPT1 is the Bar Pattern Template name

#6 is the minimum bar size to be considered
#9 is the maximum bar size to be considered
15" is the maximum bar spacing to be considered

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 18 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Bar Patterns

6" is the minimum bar spacing to be considered

3" is the amount to increment the bar spacing when needing to
V indicates that the information on this line applies to vertical bars
H indicates that the information on this line applies to horizontal bars

In addition to the parameters listed above, a Bar Pattern Template contains a user specified number of
reinforcing curtains.
The Bar Pattern Template defines the steel that the design engine chooses from during the optimization process.
The final Bar Layout chosen for the respective Wall Design Group will lie within the limits specified in the Bar
Pattern Template.

Note: The Bar Pattern Template bar sizes and spacings entered by the user are not checked immediately for code
compliance. Any code violations will be reported in the design results after the design has been conducted.

2.9 Bar Patterns

A Bar Pattern is a specific instance within the Bar Pattern Template. For example, the Bar Patterns resulting
from Bar Pattern Template “BPT1” shown in the previous section are:

#6 @ 15" V, #5 @ 15" H
#6 @ 12" V, #5 @ 15" H
#6 @ 9" V, #5 @ 15" H
#6 @ 6" V, #5 @ 15" H
#7 @ 15" V, #5 @ 15" H
#7 @ 12" V, #5 @ 15" H
etc.

A Bar Pattern is the information on which the generation of reinforcement is based. Each Wall Panel in the model
will have a single Bar Pattern assignment. If optimizing the reinforcement, the best Bar Pattern will be selected
by the program. Alternatively, the user may explicitly set the Bar Pattern for a Wall Panel and perform a design
check.

2.10 Design Process

2.10.1 Reinforcement Generation

One of the first steps in the design process within the Shear Wall Design module is the conversion of each of the
Bar Patterns and Manual Reinforcement assignments into reinforcing bars within each Wall Panel.
When the vertical bars for a Bar Pattern are placed, the first bar will be placed a distance of the clear cover from
the start of the Wall Panel, and the last bar will be placed a distance of the clear cover from the end of the Wall

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 19 RAM Structural System

Design Philosophy, Concepts, and Terminology
Coupling Beams

Panel. In addition, bars will be placed a distance of the clear cover from the edges of each wall opening in the
Wall Panel. The placement of all bars in between these bars will be based on the spacing specified by the Bar
Pattern or Manual Reinforcement assignment.

2.10.2 Reinforcement Optimization

At the time the design is executed (either by View/Update or Design All), the program will automatically size the
reinforcement for all Wall Panels in a Wall Design Group that do not have a Bar Pattern assignment or Manual
Reinforcement assignment. This section discusses the method used by the program to establish the Bar Patterns
and reinforcing bars for each Wall Panel.
RAM Concrete Shear Wall module sorts the Bar Patterns generated from the Bar Pattern Template in order of
increasing steel area per lineal foot. For each Wall Panel in the Wall Design Group, the program places bars
according to the first Bar Pattern in the list, which is the lightest steel layout. Each Section Cut in the Wall Design
Group is then evaluated for the strength and prescriptive requirements of the selected design code. If a Section
Cut fails, the program determines which Wall Panels the Section Cut intersects, increments to the next Bar
Pattern for each intersecting Wall Panel, and places the bars again in these Wall Panels for the new Bar Pattern.
At this point the program steps to the next Section Cut and the same process is repeated.
This entire process is repeated until either all Section Cuts pass, or the program reaches the last Bar Pattern in
the list for all Section Cuts that still fail. All Wall Panels intersecting the Section Cut that are frozen (i.e., have
been either explicitly assigned a Bar Pattern or have been assigned Manual Reinforcing) will not be upsized as
previously described. These Wall Panels will retain their original reinforcing assignment during the optimization
process.

2.11 Coupling Beams

A coupling beam in the RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design module is a region within a Wall Panel that is bounded
above and below by one or more wall openings or Wall Panel edges. Coupling Beams must be created by the
user. At the user's direction, Coupling Beams may be reinforced like beams. That is, they may contain top and
bottom bars, side bars, and stirrups.
There are two primary motivations for the concept of a Coupling Beam within the program:
1. They allow regions within walls that are dominated by flexural response, and thus act more like beams than
Wall Panels, to be designed and detailed accordingly.
2. They engage the prescriptions of the selected design code pertinent to headers and coupling beams for the
respective region of the wall.
Unlike with Wall Panels, reinforcing cannot be chosen automatically by the program for Coupling Beams. They
must be assigned either the global Coupling Beam reinforcing criteria, or given a custom reinforcing assignment
using the tools within the View/Update dialog.
Coupling Beams are checked for in-plane shear and axial-flexural loads. Section Cut assignments are not
necessary where Coupling Beams occur. Rather, the program internally and automatically creates Section Cuts
within the Coupling Beam in order to perform the design checks. These Section Cuts are not displayed or
exposed to the user in any way, other than for reporting the forces within critical locations of the Coupling Beam.

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Coupling Beams

There is one notable difference between the Section Cuts created within Coupling Beams and vertical Section
Cuts created by the user. When the user creates a vertical Section Cut that spans multiple stories, the program
always creates a separate Section Cut at each story. With Coupling Beams however, a single Section Cut is used at
each station, even when the Coupling Beam spans multiple stories.
Coupling Beams are checked for code prescriptive reinforcing limits. Among the basic checks considered are
minimum and maximum longitudinal bar spacing, minimum and maximum longitudinal reinforcing ratio, and
minimum and maximum transverse bar spacing. Basic member dimensional requirements are also checked
where applicable, such as minimum wall thickness, span length, and height to length ratio.
The program follows the rule of placing a vertical Section Cut at the quarter points (0, 0.25L, 0.50L, 0.75L, and
1.00L) along the free spans of coupling beams (horizontal Section Cuts are not used within Coupling Beams). A
free span is an extent along the Coupling Beam where an opening occurs both above and below. Each Section Cut
is checked for in-plane shear and axial-flexural loads for all selected load combinations.
If supported by the design code in use, Coupling Beams may also include special diagonal reinforcement used in
seismic applications. Currently, only ACI codes support the placement of diagonal reinforcement. This
reinforcement consists of two column-like groups of longitudinal bars placed in a symmetric "X" configuration
within the Coupling Beam. The user specifies the dimensions of each diagonal cage, and the size, number, and
configuration of the longitudinal bars. The program then checks the strength and prescriptive reinforcement
provisions considering the diagonal reinforcement in addition to the typical reinforcement.

Figure 14: Coupling Beams with diagonal reinforcement

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3
3.1 Criteria

3.1.1 Code
The concrete design code to use for all Shear Wall calculations is selected from the Criteria > Code dialog.

3.1.2 Design Criteria

Each concrete design code can have settings specific to that design code. Select this item to view and modify
those settings. See the code specific chapters and the end of this manual for additional information.

3.1.3 General Criteria

The General Criteria dialog contains one item: the number of load combinations for which to store design results
after the design is performed. The user can choose to save the result for only the "N" most critical load
combinations. Limiting the number of results stored can increase performance. By default, the results from the
five most critical load combinations are stored. The results for all load combinations are always calculated, since
this is necessary in order to determine which combinations are the most critical. However, the specified number
of results are displayed and stored, unless the user selects Store all design results (which is not recommended).

3.1.4 Coupling Beam Criteria

The Coupling Beam Criteria dialog is where the global reinforcing criteria for Coupling Beams are specified.
These criteria apply to all Coupling Beams in the model. In order to assign reinforcing different than specified in
this dialog, the reinforcing must be specified in the View/Update dialog. Alternatively, the user may freeze one or
more Coupling Beams and then change the global Coupling Beam criteria. In this manner the frozen Coupling

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Beams will retain the reinforcing assigned to them, while the remainder of the Coupling Beams will use the new
setting.

3.2 Assign

3.2.1 Assign Wall Design Groups Dialog

Wall When the dialog is first displayed the next available unused Wall Design Group Number will be
Design displayed in the list box, with “(new)” shown beside it. For example if walls have been assigned to
Group Wall Design Group numbers “1” and “2” then “3 (new)” will be displayed in the drop-down box.
Numbers
Clicking the drop-down box will display a list of already used Wall Design Group numbers. To
select an existing Wall Design Group Number from the drop-down list, click to display the list and
then click on the desired number. This will cause all walls in the Wall Design Group to be colored
yellow in the 3DView for easy visual verification.
Assign To add or remove walls to or from a Wall Design Group one by one, use the ‘Single’ assign mode.
Mode The Wall Design Group number currently displayed will be the one added to or removed from.
Clicking the Single button will close the dialog and the select cursor will be displayed. Click on
any wall to add it to the design group. Clicking on a wall that is already in the Wall Design Group
it will remove it from the group. Clicking a second time will add it back into the group.
Clicking on a wall that is already part of another wall design group will result in the wall being
removed from its current group and being added to the new group. While clicking on it again will
remove it from the new group, it will not return it to its previous group.
To add multiple walls to a Wall Design Group at once, use the Add - Fence assign mode. To
remove multiple walls from a Wall Design Group at once, use the Remove - Fence assign mode.
Each of these commands will close the dialog and the fence cursor will be displayed. Fence a
group of walls to add them to the specified Wall Design Group. Fencing walls already in the
current group will not cause them to be removed from the group.
Remove All Click the Remove All button to remove all walls from the specified group. The walls in the group
will be removed from the specified Wall Design Group and will be unassigned. This is only
enabled if the currently selected Wall Design Group contains at least one wall.

3.2.2 Assign Autogenerated Section Cuts Dialog

The Assign Autogenerated Section Cuts dialog allows the engineer to automatically add section cuts to Wall
Design Groups in the model.

Table 1: Assign to Wall Design Group

Single Automatically add section cuts to one Wall Design Group at a time by clicking on walls.

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Fence Automatically add section cuts to Wall Design Groups by using fence operations to select
walls.

All Automatically add section cuts to all Wall Design Groups in the model.

3.2.3 Manually Add Section Cuts

Assign > Section Cuts > Add Manual allows the engineer to manually add section cuts to any wall in the model
that is assigned to a Wall Design Group. If the model is not in elevation mode when this command is issued, the
user will be prompted to pick a wall to switch to elevation view.
After a valid section cut line is drawn, the Add Section Cut dialog is displayed.
The Section Cut Label may be changed by typing in the desired text. Note that labels are automatically generated
with the form 'SC' + next index number. The Offset distance represents the distance from the reference edge. The
reference edge is listed on the line below the Offset Distance field. Change this value to change the position of
the section cut. When a horizontal section cut is drawn, the dialog includes a checkbox to Include All Walls in
Wall Design Group check box. Check this to have the cut extend across all walls in the wall group. Clicking OK
will keep this section cut. Clicking Cancel will remove this section cut.

3.2.4 Delete Section Cuts Dialog

The Delete Section Cuts dialog allows the engineer to delete section cuts from wall design groups in the model.

Section Cut Check the check box next to the section cut type(s) to delete. At least one box must be
types to delete checked to issue this command. Only the selected type of section cut will be deleted.
Delete Mode
Single Delete a single section cut at a time by clicking on it. No delete confirmation will
group
be requested.
Fence Perform fence delete operations on groups of section cuts. No delete confirmation
will be requested.
All Delete all section cuts from the model. A confirmation dialog will be presented to
ensure that all section cuts from the model should be removed.

3.2.5 Change Section Cut

Assign > Section Cuts > Change allows the engineer to change the properties on an existing section cut.
Selecting this command results in the cursor changing from the arrow to the target so a section cut can be
selected. Once a section cut is selected, the follow dialog is launched.
The Section Cut Label may be changed by typing in the desired text. Note that labels are automatically generated
with the form 'SC' + next index number. The Offset distance represents the distance from the reference edge.

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The reference edge is listed on the line below the Offset Distance field. Change this value to change the position
of the section cut. Clicking OK will keep these changes. Clicking Cancel will discard the changes.

3.2.6 Assign Hinge

Assigning a Section Cut as a Hinge causes the provisions of the selected design code pertaining to plastic hinge
formation to be enforced for the design calculations for the Section Cut. For example, if ACI 318 is the active
design code, the special boundary element checks of Chapter 21 will be calculated for the Section Cut. If the
selected design code has no provisions pertaining to plastic hinge formation, the hinge assignment has no effect
on the design of the Section Cut. For code-specific information on plastic hinge calculations, see the chapter in
this manual for the specific design code that has been selected.

Figure 21: Hinge assignments (orange Section Cuts are hinges)

Changing the Hinge assignment for a Section Cut will clear the design results for the Wall Panel Group to which
the Section Cut belongs, and will clear the reinforcing for all Wall Panels that are not frozen. The Hinge
assignment is pertinent only for horizontal Section Cuts and only when earthquake loads (load combinations
containing a “Seismic” or “Dynamic” term) are considered in the design run. Otherwise, the assignment will have
no effect on the design results.
If the conditions of the model are such that hinge calculations will be conducted, Hinges should be assigned in
each Wall Design Group such that the appropriate failure mechanism of the structure is captured.

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Note: By default, when a Section Cut is created it is not assigned as a hinge. In order to perform the seismic
checks of the selected design code for a Section Cut, the user should make hinge assignments to the appropriate
Section Cuts in the model.

3.2.7 Section Cut List Dialog

The Section Cut List dialog presents a list of all section cuts.
From this dialog the following actions may be taken:
• Delete section cuts
• Change section cut label
• Change section cut offset distance
The Wall field displays the wall number with which the section cut is associated. The Measured from field
indicates the reference edge from which the offset is measured. The A-End field indicates from which edge the
section cut starts. The section cut Label can be changed by clicking in the Label field and typing new text. The
section cut offset may be changed by clicking in the Offset field and entering a new offset. If the offset is invalid
the field will turn red. Changes cannot be saved until this is fixed. Section cuts may be deleted by clicking in the
Wall field to highlight the section cut row and then clicking on the red [X] in the top left corner of the dialog.

3.2.8 Assign Bar Pattern Templates Dialog

The Assign Bar Pattern Templates dialog allows the engineer to assign bar pattern templates to wall design
groups in the model.
First, select a bar pattern template from the list of defined bar pattern templates. Attributes of the template will
be shown on the right. This will enable the buttons inside the Assign to Wall Design Group box.
To set the bar pattern template to use on wall design groups one at a time, click the Single button. The Assign
Bar Pattern Templates dialog will go away, and target cursor will be visible in the main RAM Concrete Shear
Wall window. Click on lateral walls to set the bar pattern template of their corresponding wall design group. All
walls in the wall design group will be highlighted, and all of them get the bar pattern template assigned together.
Clicking on a wall that does not belong to a wall design group will result in an error.
To set the bar pattern template to use on a group of wall design groups, select the Fence button. The Assign Bar
Pattern Templates dialog will go away, and the fence cursor will be visible in the main RAM Concrete Shear
Wall window. Click and drag a rectangle on the screen to select the desired walls. All lateral walls in the
rectangle that belong to some wall design group will be highlighted (along with all other walls in all of the
highlighted groups), and all of these will get the bar pattern template assigned together.
To set the bar pattern template for all lateral walls in the model that already have a wall design group assigned,
click the All button.
Select Edit Templates to create a new bar pattern template, or edit an existing one. This will bring up the Edit
Bar Pattern Templates dialog.
Click the Close button to dismiss the dialog without making assignments.

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3.2.9 Assign Bar Patterns Dialog

The Assign Bar Patterns dialog allows the engineer to assign bar patterns to wall panels in wall design groups.
Please note that when a design is performed on a wall design group, bar patterns will automatically be assigned
to all of the wall panels in the group. Use this dialog to override the automatically calculated optimum bar
pattern.
Select a wall design group by either:
a. selecting a wall design group number from the drop-down list. A wall design group that has a bar pattern
template assigned is shown in the list in bold , or
b. selecting a wall design group graphically
To do this, click the Select… button and then select a wall in the wall design group from the main 3D display. The
Assign Bar Pattern dialog will reopen once the wall design group is selected. Once a wall design group is
selected via either mechanism, it will highlight in the 3D display.
To choose a horizontal bar pattern for assignment, check the Apply Section check box in the Horizontal Bar
Patter group. This will activate the combo box that lists each available bar pattern. Vertical bar patterns are
chosen in this same manner. Select the desired bar pattern from the appropriate combo box.
Once a wall design group has been selected and one or more bar patterns have been selected, the buttons in the
Assign to Wall Panel box will become enabled.

Single Assign the selected bar pattern to one wall panel at a time by clicking on walls in the selected wall
design group.
Fence Assign the selected bar pattern to wall panels in the selected wall design group by using fence
operations to select walls.
All Assign the selected bar pattern to all wall panels in the selected wall design group in the model.

Note: For single and fence above, the selected wall design group will be highlighted in yellow, and wall panels
that selected will be highlighted in orange. When a wall is selected that is part of a wall panel that contains more
than one wall, all walls in the panel will highlight.

3.2.10 Assign Manual Reinforcement

The Assign Manual Reinforcement dialog allows the engineer to assign reinforcement to Wall Panels such that
vertical bars are placed in one or more zones along the length of the Wall Panel, each of which can have different
properties. Unlike a Bar Pattern, in which the reinforcing is placed uniformly along the entire Wall Panel
according to the specified spacing, the Manual Reinforcing option allows the user to vary the bar size, spacing,
and number of reinforcing layers along the length of the Wall Panel according to the zones specified in the
dialog. In addition, each vertical zone created may be specified as a boundary, in which case any code-prescribed
confinement calculations are performed for the respective vertical zone.
After selecting Assign – Manual Reinforcement from the main menu, the user will be prompted to select a Wall
Panel. After selecting a Wall Panel, the Manual Reinforcement dialog will appear with a single horizontal
reinforcement zone and a single vertical reinforcement zone shown in the dialog. Each zone will extend the full

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height and length, respectively, of the Wall Panel. The bar size, bar spacing, and number of curtains may be
edited for each zone. For vertical reinforcing, additional zones may be added using the “Add” button, or deleted
using the “Remove” button. The start and end positions of the vertical reinforcing zones may be adjusted either
by entering new start coordinates directly in the spreadsheet cells, or by moving the graphical representation of
the zones using the cursor. Note that the cursor will snap to wall and opening edges for convenience.
Vertical reinforcing zones also have a boundary assignment associated with them. There are three options
available:
• YES
• NO, But Check
• NO, Don't Check
A boundary assignment of "YES" means that the program will design the vertical reinforcing zone as a boundary
according to the provisions of the selected design code. Among the possible conditions that will be evaluated are
reinforcing ratio (percentage), boundary extents, and confinement. In addition, the design of ties or links
required to confine the vertical reinforcing in the zone per code will be performed. If the design code has no
provisions regarding wall boundaries, this assignment will have no impact on the design.
A boundary assignment of "NO, But Check" means that all design checks listed above will be performed for the
vertical reinforcing zone, but the design of confinement ties for the zone will not be performed. In addition, if the
zone lies in a region where a boundary is found to be required by code, a design failure will be delivered to the
user both in the Design Warnings page of the View/Update dialog and in the Section Cut design report. In
addition the Section Cut will be colored red accordingly.
A boundary assignment of "NO, Don't Check" means that no boundary-related checks will be performed for the
vertical reinforcing zone. Further, no design failures will be generated if the zone lies in a region where a
boundary is found to be required by code.
Once a Wall Panel has been assigned Manual Reinforcement, subsequently issuing the Manual Reinforcement
command on the Wall Panel will cause the existing reinforcing zones to be loaded when the dialog appears.
Further revisions may then be made to the reinforcing zones in the Wall Panel. After making further revisions to
the information, the changes will be transferred if "OK" is selected. At this point the design results in the Wall
Panel Group to which the Wall Panel belongs will be cleared. If "Cancel" is selected, any revisions made will be
ignored.
After a Wall Panel has been assigned Manual Reinforcement, the Wall Panel is frozen with that reinforcing
information. In order to clear the Wall Panel of the Manual Reinforcement that has been assigned, the user must
either assign a Bar Pattern from the Bar Pattern Template (using Assign > Bar Pattern), or issue the Process >
Clear Reinforcing command.
When multiple vertical reinforcing zones occur in a Wall Panel, the bar placement where adjacent zones meet is
such that the zone with the larger amount of reinforcing per unit length controls. Specifically, the zone with the
larger amount of steel per length will have a bar placed at the exact start or end point of that zone.

3.2.11 Assign Wall Panel Priority

A Wall Panel may be assigned any integer value greater than or equal to zero, called the Priority. By default the
Priority value for all Wall Panels is zero. The Priority value is used to determine how vertical reinforcement is
placed at locations where two or more Wall Panels intersect in plan. Wall Panels with a higher Priority will have
the vertical reinforcement placed such that the bars are run all the way to the edge of the wall. The adjacent Wall

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Panel with the lower Priority will have the vertical reinforcement stop at the face of the Wall Panel with the
higher Priority.
This feature is useful for "L", "C", or "I" shaped wall cores where the engineer may prefer to run either the flange
or the web steel the entire extent of the wall. In particular, in situations where the corners of the wall are heavily
reinforced compared to the midspan zones of the wall, the Priority allows control over the reinforcement
placement at the wall corners or boundary regions.
Changing the Priority of a Wall Panel will clear any Bar Patterns in the Wall Panel Group that are not frozen. The
reinforcing for these Wall Panels will then be reoptimized the next time the design is run for the Wall Design
Group. Changing the Priority of a frozen Wall Panel will not clear the assigned Bar Pattern or Manual
Reinforcement. The bars will be placed again according to the new Priority assignment(s) once the design is run
again for the Wall Design Group, but the assigned Bar Pattern or manual reinforcement zones will remain.

3.2.12 Assign Coupling Beams

Coupling Beams must be assigned while in elevation mode. Once in elevation mode, after having selected the
Assign Coupling Beam command, a dialog is visible prompting the user to select an assign mode. A description of
what each assign mode does is now given.

Note: In this program Coupling Beams are always bounded by one or more wall openings below, and one or
more wall openings above, or a Wall Panel edge above. Based on a selected wall opening, which is always taken
as the bottom boundary of the Coupling Beam, the program automatically detects the corresponding openings or
edges that comprise the top bounding edge of the Coupling Beam.

Toggle – This assign mode allows the creation of one Coupling Beam at a time. After selecting this command,
Single the mouse cursor turns to crosshairs. Placing the crosshairs over any wall opening will cause a
preview of a Coupling Beam to be drawn in white. Selecting the left mouse button at this point will
add the Coupling Beam to the Wall Panel as it was drawn in the preview. After the Coupling Beam is
placed it is colored either light blue or yellow, according to its status (as with Section Cuts, light blue
denotes the Coupling Beam is not ready to be designed, while yellow indicates it is ready to be
designed).
Selecting the left mouse button once again will delete the Coupling Beam that was placed, and bring
the preview back. Any existing Coupling Beam may be deleted using this method.
If another wall opening exists within the Wall Panel in which the selected wall opening occurs, the
Coupling Beam may be created so that it spans horizontally to the second opening as well. This is
done by first selecting the original wall opening, then moving the cursor over the adjacent opening.
Note that the preview now shows the Coupling Beam spanning both openings. A Coupling Beam
may be created such that it spans between any two wall openings that lie within the same Wall
Panel, and are aligned such that the assignment is geometrically possible. To create the Coupling
Beam, simply click the left mouse button while the cursor is over the second wall opening.
Add The Add Fence assign mode places a Coupling Beam above all wall openings contained with the face
Fence drawn by the user. Note that as the fence is drawn, a preview of each Coupling Beam that will be
created is shown in white. This assignment method does not assume that any Coupling Beams span
horizontally between two or more openings, as is possible in the Toggle – Single mode. Rather, a
discrete Coupling Beam is placed at each wall opening contained within the fence.

When a Coupling Beam is added to or removed from a Wall Panel for which the design is complete, the design
results will be cleared for the Wall Panel. If the Wall Panel is frozen, it will retain the Bar Pattern or Manual

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Load Combinations

Reinforcement it currently has. Otherwise, the Bar Pattern will be cleared as well. Thus, all Section Cuts within
the Wall Panel will turn yellow following an assignment or deletion.
Coupling Beams may not overlap one another and the user will be notified during assignment if this situation
occurs. Wall Panel reinforcing and Coupling Beam reinforcing also never overlap. Wall Panel reinforcing is
placed only up to the boundary of the Coupling Beam. This includes Manual Reinforcement.

3.2.13 Assign DXF Elevation Numbers

The dxf Elevation Number assignment allows the user to specify how walls are to be grouped when the dxf
elevation sheet is generated in RAM Manager. When this command is issued the user is prompted to select Wall
Panels to which an elevation ID number will be assigned. There is no restriction on how this assignment may be
made.
Wall Panels that share the same elevation number will be drawn as a single elevated wall in the dxf file when it is
generated in RAM Manager. The exception is the case where the Wall Panels do not lie in the same plane. Two
Wall Panels that have the same elevation number but do not lie in the same plane will be drawn in separate
elevations on the dxf sheet.
Realizing there may be a correlation between the Wall Design Group assignments and the desired wall elevation
scheme, for convenience the Wall Design Group numbers are displayed in addition to the elevation numbers
when making this assignment. If a Wall Panel has not been assigned an elevation number, a "?" will be listed as
the elevation number until one has been assigned.

3.2.14 Edit Bar Pattern Templates Dialog

The Edit Bar Pattern Templates dialog allows the engineer to add, change, and delete Bar Pattern Templates.
The top part of the dialog contains all the information relating to a single Bar Pattern Template. The first time
this dialog is used in a new model, the list at the bottom will be empty. Fill in the information with the desired
values for a Bar Pattern Template, and then click Add to create a new Bar Pattern Template. Note that Add will
be disabled if the Label field is empty. If the Automatically Generate check box next to the label field is
checked, the label will be automatically generated based on the dialog settings. There is no limit to the number of
Bar Pattern Templates that can be created. However, all labels must be unique.
To change an existing template, select it from the list at the bottom. The current setting for the template will be
filled into the dialog above. Make the desired changes then click the Change button to apply the new settings to
the template. Changes to the template will be lost if a different template is selected before clicking the Change
button. Dismissing the dialog with OK or Cancel prior to hitting the Change button, will also result in changes
being lost. To delete the currently selected template, click the Delete button.
Clicking OK to close the dialog will save the templates while clicking Cancel will ignore any work done in the
dialog since it opened.

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3.3 Load Combinations

The RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design module makes use of load combinations in design. The combined loads
represent the demand side of the design calculations. At least one load combination must be defined before the
design process can be executed. The load cases (Dead, Live, Wind, Seismic, etc.) that are used in the load
combination terms in the Concrete Shear Wall Design module represent the load cases that were analyzed in the
RAM Frame module. Therefore, the load cases available for combining in the Load Combinations dialog in the
Concrete Shear Wall Design module are the same as the load cases that were created and analyzed in the most
recent RAM Frame analysis.
Changing the defined Load Combinations (e.g., regenerating the combinations, adding or removing
combinations, etc) once a design has been performed will cause the reinforcing for all non-frozen Wall Panels to
be cleared.
Load combinations can either be generated or entered manually by the engineer. A dialog corresponding to each
method of creating Load Combinations is available. The design process considers the load combinations created
from both methods. Each method of load combing is discussed below.

3.3.1 Code Generated Combinations

Issuing the Combinations – Generate… command brings up the Load Combination Generation dialog box. This
dialog box provides the engineer with control over the load combinations that are generated and used for
design. For more information about using the Load Combination Generator, refer to the Load Combination
Generator manual.

3.3.2 User Defined

Issuing the Combinations – Custom… command brings up the Custom Load Combination dialog box. The
Custom Load Combination works in a similar manner to the dialog for generating combinations. One notable
difference is that combinations can be entered manually and modified. For more information about using the
Load Combination Generator, refer to the Load Combination Generator manual.

3.4 Process

3.4.1 Design All

The Design All command performs the design for all Wall Design Groups in the model successively. If a Wall
Design Group does not have Section Cuts, the design for the Wall Design Group will be skipped. Once the design
process is complete, the View/Update command may be selected to view the detailed design results for a given
Wall Design Group. The Design All process may be terminated by selecting Cancel while the design is running.

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3.4.2 View/Update
The View/Update is RAM Structural System's hallmark method of reviewing and interacting with the design
results. The View/Update command is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.

3.4.3 Copy Reinforcing

The Copy Reinforcing command allows the user to copy the reinforcing in a Wall Panel or Coupling Beam to any
other Wall Panel or Coupling Beam within the same Wall Design Group. This command is particularly useful for
elements to which Manual Reinforcing has been assigned, and it is desired to copy this same reinforcing layout
to other elements. When executed on Wall Panels, the command copies both the horizontal and vertical bar
layouts to the target Wall Panels, clearing the results for all Section Cuts crossing the destination Wall Panels. If
the Section Cuts cross other Wall Panels that are not frozen, the Bar Pattern for these Wall Panels will be cleared.
The target Wall Panels are frozen after the paste operation is completed. Similarly, when executed on Coupling
Beams, the command copies all reinforcing specifications for the source Coupling Beam to the target Coupling
Beam, clearing the design results for the target Coupling Beam.
The only geometric constraint enforced during the paste operation is that for cases when the source Wall Panel
contains Manual Reinforcing, as opposed to a Bar Pattern, the target Wall Panel must be the same length as the
source Wall Panel. Other than this, there are no restrictions placed on the Wall Panels or Coupling Beams to
which the reinforcing can be pasted. For example, the source and target Wall Panels may have different
thicknesses, heights, concrete strengths, and wall openings.
To use the Copy Reinforcing command, first click the Select Source Member… button. The user will now be
prompted to select a single member from which the reinforcing will be copied.
After selecting a Wall Panel or Coupling Beam that meets the conditions for a source element, the dialog will
appear again, this time with information on the selected element populated in the dialog. If the selected source
element is a Wall Panel and contains Manual Reinforcing, each reinforcing zone will be listed under Vertical
Reinforcing.
To copy the listed reinforcing to other Wall Panels or Coupling Beams, click Select Target Members…. Now
select as many Wall Panels or Coupling Beams as desired using the single selection method. As each element is
selected, the reinforcing is copied to the element and frozen with the reinforcing. The next time the design is run
it will reflect the new reinforcing assignment.

Note: In order to visually verify that the copy is taking place, choose View > Bar Patterns prior to performing
the copy in order to see the Bar Pattern label that is being assigned to the target Wall Panels.

3.4.4 Freeze Reinforcing

The Freeze Reinforcing command can be executed on either Wall Panels or Coupling Beams. When either of
these entities is frozen, the reinforcing currently assigned will be retained until the Clear Reinforcing command
is executed on the Wall Panel or Coupling Beam. As a result, actions that cause Wall Panel or Coupling Beam

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reinforcing to be cleared (such as a re-run of RAM Frame, changes to the load combinations, or changes to the
code criteria) have no effect on the assigned reinforcing.
Freezing a Wall Panel prevents it from being optimized by any future use of the Design All or View/Update >
Optimize commands. Rather, the Wall Panel will retain the reinforcing assigned to it at the time the Freeze
command was issued.

Single Freeze the reinforcing in a single Wall Panel or Coupling Beam at a time by clicking on it.
Fence Perform fence freeze operations on groups of Wall Panels and Coupling Beams.
All Freeze the reinforcing on all Wall Panels and Coupling Beam in the model.

3.4.5 Clear Reinforcing

The Clear Reinforcing command may be issued for any Wall Panel or Coupling Beam. Clearing the reinforcing
on a Wall Panel forces it to be redesigned by subsequent uses of the Design All or View/Update commands.
That is, any manual or user-manipulated reinforcing assigned to the Wall Panel will be deleted and the next time
the design is run for the Wall Design Group, the optimization will choose the best Bar Pattern for the Wall Panel
from the Bar Pattern Template. Clearing the reinforcing on a Coupling Beam will likewise delete any user-
assigned reinforcing and the next time the design is run, the Coupling Beam will be reinforced using the global
Coupling Beam reinforcing criteria.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 33 RAM Structural System

 The View/Update Dialog
4
Selecting the View/Update command, followed by a Wall Design Group, will execute the design for the Wall
Design Group, immediately after which the View/Update dialog will appear. When a Section Cut or Coupling
Beam is selected within the three-dimensional view pane, the design results for the selected element are
displayed.
If reinforcing exists for a given Wall Panel within the Wall Design Group at the time View/Update is executed, a
design check will be performed for the Wall Panel. If reinforcing does not exist for the Wall Panel, the program
will select the optimum reinforcement using the Bar Pattern Template assigned to the Wall Design Group.

Figure 29: View/Update Dialog

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 34 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog

Figure 30: 3D View Pane Figure 31: Information Pane

Figure 32: Design Sketch Pane

Figure 33: Buttons

Figure 34: Status Bar

The View/Update dialog is divided into five regions. In the top left is a pane containing a 3D view of all of the
walls in the selected wall design group, along with a toolbar that provides control over the 3D view (see Figure
"3D View Pane"). To the right of this is the information pane, containing a number of tabs that contain
information about the selected Section Cut or Coupling Beam and the design results (see Figure "Information
Pane"). Below the information pane is a design sketch pane showing either the wall design group in plan (if
nothing is selected), or a section view of the selected Section Cut or Coupling Beam (see Figure "Design Sketch
Pane"). Across the right is a column of buttons (along with a stop light indicating overall design status) for

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The View/Update Dialog
3D View Pane

performing actions (see Figure "Buttons"). Across the bottom is a status bar that shows what Wall Design Group
is selected, along with the story of the wall that was originally selected in the main RAM Concrete Shear Wall
window, and the selected Section Cut or Coupling Beam (if any) (see Figure "Status Bar").
The View/Update dialog can be enlarged by clicking and dragging a window corner. Once this has been done,
each pane can also be resized by dragging the bar between.

4.1 3D View Pane

The 3D view pane displays the Walls in the selected Wall Design Group. The mouse and keyboard can be used to
rotate or pan the view. When the dialog first displays, by default the keyboard rotates and the mouse pans. Click
in the view and use the scroll wheel of the mouse to zoom in and out.

Figure 35: View/Update Dialog - 3D View Pane

Table 2: The buttons above the view behave as follows

Icon Description

Zoom out so that all the walls in the Wall Design Group are visible.

Zoom All

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The View/Update Dialog
3D View Pane

Icon Description

Zoom in by specifying a rectangle in the view.

Zoom Fence

Zoom In

Zoom Out

Zoom Previous

Switch to 3D view.

3D View

Switch to elevation view. After selecting this button, select a Wall to serve as the plane of
the viewing elevation.

Elevation View

Use orthographic projection to display the Walls.

Orthographic

Use perspective projection to display the Walls.

Perspective

Use the arrow keys to rotate the view. Note that left and right rotate about the model's Z
axis, so when looking down from above, the view will rotate clockwise or
counterclockwise. Holding down the <Ctrl> key while using the arrow keys in this
Keyboard Rotates mode, causes the view to pan instead of rotate

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The View/Update Dialog
3D View Pane

Icon Description

Use the arrow keys to pan the view. Holding down the <Ctrl> key while using the arrow
keys in this mode causes the view to rotate instead of pan.

Keyboard Pans

Click on any section cut to select it. The selected section cut will be reflected in the
design pane, the status bar, and any section-cut specific tabs in the information pane.

Mouse Selects
Section Cut

Click on any rebar to select it. This will highlight the corresponding row in the
appropriate Vertical or Horizontal tab in the Reinforcing tab of the information pane.

Mouse Selects
Rebar

Click and drag with the left mouse button to pan the view. Holding down the <Ctrl> key
while dragging in this mode causes the view to rotate instead of pan.

Mouse Pans

Click and drag with the left mouse button to rotate the view. Unlike keyboard rotation,
dragging left and right rotates the view to the left or right based on the current
orientation. Holding down the <Ctrl> key while dragging in this mode causes the view to
Mouse Rotates pan instead of rotate.

Table 3: The buttons below the view behave as follows

Icon Description

Click to toggle section cut display on or off in the 3D view. When Mouse Selects Section
Cut is selected, this option will be disabled, since section cuts must be displayed in order
to select one.
Show/Hide Section
Cuts

Click to toggle rebar display on or off in the 3D view. When Mouse Selects Rebar is
selected, this option will be disabled, since rebar must be displayed in order to select
one.
Show/Hide Rebar

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The View/Update Dialog
3D View Pane

Icon Description

Click to toggle mesh display on or off in the 3D view. The mesh displays colored stress
contours when a section cut is selected and a load combination is selected for the section
cut.
Show/Hide Mesh

Click to show the Mesh Options dialog.

Mesh Options

Click to toggle display of the global coordinate axes.

Show/Hide Axes

Click to toggle display of the section cut labels.

Show/Hide Section
Cut Labels

Click to increase the text size. Repeat as desired.

Increase Text Size

Click to decrease the text size. Repeat as desired.

Decrease Text Size

When a Section Cut is selected, the actual Section Cut Segment that was clicked on will be highlighted in orange,
and the other Section Cut Segments will be highlighted in white (for a description of a Section Cut Segment, see
Section 2.6.1). The selected Section Cut Segment ID will be displayed in the status bar, along with the story name
for the selected Section Cut.

4.1.1 Stress Contours

When the Show Mesh button (see Figure in Section 4.1) is enabled and a load combination is selected, stress
colors are shown. The colors used are configured using the Mesh Options pop-up dialog. These can be used to
make sure that Section Cuts are placed across the regions of maximum tension (most red).

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 39 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
3D View Pane

Figure 36: View/Update Dialog - Stress Contours

4.1.2 Mesh Options

The Mesh Options pop-up dialog allows the user to configure the mesh for the stress contours display.

Figure 37: View/Update Dialog - Mesh Options Pop-Up Dialog

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 40 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

In order for the stress contours to display, select a load combination on the Axial Flexural > Results tab. The
resulting stresses for the selected load combination are then displayed. There are seven stress types from which
to select. They follow the conventions shown in Figure below.

Figure 38: View/Update Dialog - Stress Types

The S Min and S Max settings are the principal minimum and maximum stresses.
The Mesh check box controls whether or not the mesh itself is displayed. The Smooth check box controls
whether the stresses at each mesh node are averaged together for all shell elements that share that node.
Checking it averages the stresses; unchecking it displays the calculated stress for each shell independently.
The scale shows what each color means. The numbers can be modified at each end of the scale, thus changing the
range of stresses. By moving the numbers closer to zero, more regions show up as red, and regions in between
are stretched, potentially giving a better view of what is happening.

4.2 Information Pane

The information pane contains a number of tabs that display information about the selected Wall Design Group.
A discussion of each of the pages is given below.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 41 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

4.2.1 Axial/Flexural
Results
This tab contains the results for the axial/flexural interaction evaluation of the Section Cut (See Figure below).
The tabular axial/flexural results are listed for each load combination considered during the design run. The
required axial force and moment, the orientation of the moment relative to the local major axis (denoted as β),
and the interaction value are listed for each load combination. If the interaction value is greater than unity, the
line is colored red. When a row is selected with the mouse or the arrow keys, the locally and globally-oriented
moments corresponding to the load combination are shown below the spreadsheet region.

Figure 39: View/Update Dialog - Information Pane

Interaction Surface
This tab shows the interaction surface diagram for the Section Cut. There are two possible view modes: the P
versus M curve view, and the Mmaj versus Mmin curve view. Either of these is activated by toggling the respective
button above the curve display.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Figure 40: View/Update Dialog - Interaction Surface Diagram Tab

The P versus M view shows the two-dimensional axial versus moment capacity curve at the selected angle β
from the local major axis. The Mmaj versus Mmin curve view shows the two-dimensional capacity curve at the
selected value P. The evaluated load combinations (Pu, Mu,maj, Mu,min) are plotted in the display if they occur
within a tolerance of the plane in which the capacity curve lies.
To snap directly to a plane than contains one of the evaluated load combinations, first select the corresponding
row on the Results tab, and then select the Interaction Surface tab. This will draw the curve in the plane at which
the selected load combination lies.

4.2.2 Shear
This tab contains the shear design results. For more information on how shear design is performed, see the
respective section for the design code being used.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 43 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Figure 41: View/Update Dialog - Shear Tab

4.2.3 Reinforcing
This Reinforcing tab contains information about Wall Panel reinforcing.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Figure 42: View/Update Dialog - Bar Patterns Tab

Bar Patterns
This tab allows the user to replace the reinforcing in the selected Wall Panel with a new Bar Pattern. When a new
Bar Pattern is selected in the combo box, the reinforcing in the respective Wall Panel (including manual and
user-defined reinforcing) is deleted and the bars are placed in the Wall Panel according to the selected Bar
Pattern.
The Wall Panel that is affected by the change is the Wall Panel that contains the most recently selected Section
Cut Segment in the 3D window. This Section Cut Segment is colored orange in the 3D window, as shown in
Figure below. In order to save the changes that were made, Update Database must be issued prior to exiting the
View/Update dialog.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 45 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Figure 43: Selected Bar Pattern will apply to Wall Panel corresponding to selected (orange) section cut segment.

Vertical

Figure 44: View/Update Dialog - Vertical Reinforcing Tab

This tab shows information about vertical rebar

No.: This column is just a reference number. The actual

number has no significance.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Qty.: This column allows the user to select the number of

bars used at each location.

Bar Size: This column allows the user to select the bar size.

X: This column displays the distance from the start of the

Wall Panel to each bar.

Start Z: This column displays the distance from the bottom of

the Wall Panel to the low end of each bar.

End Z: This column displays the distance from the bottom of

the Wall Panel to the high end each bar

If one or more rows in the list are selected, the corresponding bars in the 3D view will be highlighted. The user
may change the quantity or size of any bar in the list and rerun the design. In order to save the changes that were
made, Update Database must be issued prior to exiting the View/Update dialog. Once this is done the Wall Panel
to which the changes were made is frozen.

Horizontal

Figure 45: View/Update Dialog - Horizontal Reinforcing Tab

This tab shows information about horizontal rebar.

No. This column is just a reference number. The actual number has no significance.
Qty This column allows the user to select the number of bars used at each location.
Bar Size This column allows the user to select the bar size.
Start X This column displays the distance from the start of the Wall Panel to the start of each bar.
End X This column displays the distance from the start of the Wall Panel to the end of each bar.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Z This column displays the distance from the bottom of the Wall Panel to each bar.

If one or more rows in the list are selected, the corresponding bars in the 3D view will be highlighted. The user
may change the quantity or size of any bar in the list and rerun the design. In order to save the changes that were
made, Update Database must be issued prior to exiting the View/Update dialog. Once this is done the Wall Panel
to which the changes were made is frozen.

4.2.4 Boundary Elements

The Boundary Elements page provides design information related to boundary element design prescribed by the
selected design code. If the design code in use has no provisions related to wall boundaries this page will not
appear when View/Update is selected. The sheet is split into two tabs: Extents and Tie/Link Design. A discussion
of each is given below.

Extends tab
The wall boundary design method that is implemented in RAM Concrete involves limiting the neutral axis of a
section under a given axial load to a prescribed value. The Extents page calculates the actual and limit neutral
axis distance for each load combination considered during the design. If the neutral axis exceeds the limit, a
boundary is required to confine the compression region(s) of the section. The required length of the boundary,
projecting at an angle b from the point of maximum compression, is listed in the last column of the spreadsheet.
If a boundary is required for a load combination, the corresponding row will be colored red.

Figure 46: Boundary Elements page

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Clicking on a row in the spreadsheet will draw the following in the cross-section sketch at the lower part of the
dialog:
• The corner of extreme compression will be denoted with a black dot.
• The required neutral axis will be displayed according to the calculated required length and angle b listed for
the respective load combination in the table above.
The Design Warnings Page will list all load combinations where the required boundary region encompasses
reinforcing zones not designated as boundaries. The user may then adjust the reinforcing zones accordingly to
meet the code requirements. For example, for the case shown below, the required boundary region (outlined in
green) extends past the zone denoted as a boundary, and thus a design failure will be listed for this load
combination on the Design Warnings page.

Note: A Section Cut must be designated as a Hinge (Assign > Section Cut > Hinge) in order for boundary
element extents to be evaluated.

Figure 47: Boundary zone evaluation, comparison of required and provided boundary extents

Tie/Link Design tab

The Tie/Link Design page provides information related to the design of confinement ties for zones specified as
boundaries. Zones not specified as boundaries will have no tie design performed. Reinforcing zones are created
using the Assign > Manual Reinforcement command. Each reinforcing zone is referenced to a Wall Panel and a
Section Cut Segment in the calculation page to identify where they occur. The zone start and end locations listed
are with respect to the Wall Panel in which the zones occur. The tie size used may be changed in the design code
criteria menu.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 49 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Figure 48: Tie/Link Design results sheet

4.2.5 Coupling Beams

The Coupling Beams tab reports the design results for any Coupling Beam within the selected Wall Design
Group. To view the results for a specific Coupling Beam, first select the Coupling Beam in the 3D view pane. This
is done by first verifying the Coupling Beams are displayed in the 3D view pane. Toggle on the Coupling Beams
using the Show/Hide Coupling Beam Labels tool button below the 3D view pane.

Next make sure the selection mode is set to Mouse Selects Member.

Now simply click on any Coupling Beam and the design results will be loaded into the Coupling Beams tab.
A detailed discussion of the information provided on each sub tab is now given.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 50 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Properties Tab
The properties tab provides the basic input geometric and material properties associated with the Coupling
Beam.

Typical Reinforcing
The Typical Reinforcing tab holds the bar sizes and spacings used for the selected Coupling Beam. The first time
the Wall Design Group is designed, the settings here will reflect the global coupling beam design criteria. Within
this tab, the reinforcing settings may be changed, and the design rerun. The new settings will affect only the
selected coupling beam, not all the coupling beams in the Wall Design Group. To save the new reinforcing
settings and the associated design results, select Update Database after running the design. At this point the
Coupling Beam will be frozen with the current settings.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

The Typical Reinforcing specification consists of one to five top and bottom layers of bars (specified separately)
with a designated bar size and number of bars in each layer, as well as the vertical spacing of the bar rows.
Additionally, a bar size and nominal spacing for side bars (which are placed at each wall face), and a tie size and
spacing transverse to the section, are specified. For the settings in the dialog above, the resulting reinforcement
is as shown below.

Alternatively, a uniform reinforcing layout may be specified by selecting the appropriate check box. In this case,
the coupling beam will be reinforced as would a wall. The settings in the uniform layout area would govern the
placement of the reinforcing.
All of the longitudinal bars (top, bottom, and side) are considered for the axial-flexural strength checks. The
transverse bars are considered as the shear reinforcing for the purpose of shear strength calculations. All
longitudinal bars are located a distance away from the face of the section equal to the clear cover plus the
diameter of the ties.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Diagonal Reinforcing
The diagonal reinforcing tab is available if (and only if) using a design code that has specifications for special
diagonal reinforcing for seismic applications. As with the Typical Reinforcing tab, any setting may be changed
and the design rerun. The diagonal reinforcing specified here does not affect the placement of the typical
reinforcing, even if there are collisions.

Since the location of the diagonal bars in cross section varies along the length of the Coupling Beam, a slider is
provided that allows the user to change the view location along the Coupling Beam. This is called the Cross
Section View Location, and it input as a fraction of the Coupling Beam span.

Design Results
The Design Results tab holds the axial-flexural and shear results for the selected coupling beam.

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

The user may select a specific axial-flexural critical condition to review:

• Worst Overall Interaction: The load combination data point that produces the worst overall value of
interaction at any point along the Coupling Beam.
• Maximum + Flexure: The load combination data point that produces the largest required absolute
magnitude of positive moment at any point along the Coupling Beam.
• Minimum - Flexure: The load combination data point that produces the largest required absolute magnitude
of negative moment at any point along the Coupling Beam.
• Maximum Compression: The load combination data point that produces the largest required value of
compression at any point along the Coupling Beam.
• Maximum Tension: The load combination data point that produces the largest required value of tension at
any point along the Coupling Beam.
Changing the Critical Condition selection will update the design results to reflect the respective condition. The
axial and flexure values of both capacity and demand are reported, as well as the corresponding load
combination. Two values of interaction ratio are reported: one corresponding to the worst overall interaction,
and one corresponding to the currently selected critical condition.
Recall that, as described in Section 2.11, Section Cuts are created at the quarter points within free spans of the
header, and thus several locations along the coupling beam are evaluated for axial flexure. Thus, the location at
which the selected critical condition occurs is also reported in the Axial-Flexure region. The location is expressed
as a distance from either the left face of the beam, or the right face of the beam, depending on the user's
selection.

4.2.6 Design Warnings

This tab displays the design warnings for the selected Section Cut or Coupling Beam.

Figure 49: View/Update Dialog - Design Warnings Tab

There are two types of messages displayed in the Design Warnings sheet:

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 54 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

This type of message conveys that, although the design has not failed, further action may
need to be taken by the engineer to satisfy a design requirement.

Warning

The selected Section Cut or Coupling Beam has failed one or more of the design checks.

Failure

4.2.7 Design Sketch Pane

Figure 50: View/Update Dialog - Cross Sectional Sketch Pane

What is displayed in the Design Sketch pane varies based on what is selected in the 3D view pane. If a Section Cut
is selected in the 3D view pane, a cross-sectional sketch of the Section Cut is displayed. If a Coupling Beam is
selected, a cross-sectional sketch of the Coupling beam is displayed. If neither of these is selected, a projected
plan of the entire Wall Design Group is displayed. Click in this view and then use the mouse scroll wheel to zoom
in and out. The buttons to the right behave as follows:

Icon Description

The Angle Legend shows how the major and minor axes of the section cut are oriented. The
design sketch always rotates section cuts so that their major axis is in the positive X
direction and their minor axis is in the positive Y direction, so this overlay is fixed.

Angle Legend

This shows the global model axes. Since the design sketch is automatically rotated based on
the major axis, this allows the user to visualize how the section cut is oriented with respect
to the global coordinates.

Global Axis

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The View/Update Dialog
Information Pane

Icon Description

This shows which direction (in global coordinates) the eye-point in the 3D elevation view is
pointing. It is only visible when the 3D view is in elevation mode.

Elevation
Legend

Click to toggle display of the dimensions in the sketch.

Show/Hide
Dimensions

Click to toggle display of all rebar that is intersected by the currently selected section cut.
(Note that no rebar will be drawn if no section cut is selected.)

Show/Hide
Rebar

Click to toggle display of the global coordinate axes.

Show/Hide
Axes

Click to toggle display of the angle legend.

Show/Hide
Angle Legend

Show/Hide Click to toggle display of the elevation legend (only available when 3D view is in elevation
Elevation mode).
Legend

Zoom In

Zoom Out

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The View/Update Dialog
Actions/Status

Icon Description

Zoom out so that everything is visible in the sketch.

Zoom All

The cross sectional view pane will display the Section Cut differently depending on whether the Section Cut is
oriented horizontally or vertically.
Horizontal Section Cuts are drawn so that the local major direction is oriented sideways as viewed on screen in
the cross section view pane. As a result, a positive Mmaj moment will cause compression on the right hand side
of the cross section, and a positive Mmin moment will cause compression at the top of the cross section.
Vertical Section Cuts are drawn so that the local major direction is oriented upwards as viewed on screen in the
cross section view pane. As a result, a positive Mmaj moment will cause compression at the top of the cross
section.

4.3 Actions/Status

4.3.1 Optimize
The Optimize command within View/Update is used to select the best Bar Pattern and reinforcing layout for all
Wall Panels in a Wall Design Group. When this command is launched the program deletes all existing reinforcing
prior to commencing the design process. Note the changes made by the Optimize command are made permanent
immediately, even without issuing the “Update Database” command and all existing reinforcing that is not frozen
will be deleted.
For any Wall Panels within a Wall Design Group that are Frozen, the Optimize command will not select the best
Bar Pattern but rather will perform a design check on the reinforcement that exists in the Wall Panel.

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The View/Update Dialog
Actions/Status

4.3.2 Analyze
The Analyze command within View/Update performs a design check for all Wall Panels in the Wall Design
Group, regardless of the whether each is Frozen or not. Thus, unlike the Optimize command, the Analyze
command does not select any reinforcement and instead evaluates only existing reinforcing. In order to save the
changes to the database and thus make them permanent, the user must select Update Database prior to exiting
View/Update.

4.3.3 Update Database

Selecting Update Database makes the changes that have been made to the reinforcing during the current View/
Update session permanent. It also sets to Frozen each of the Wall Panels for which reinforcing has been
modified. This is the case regardless of whether the Bar Pattern was modified, or whether individual bars were
modified.

4.3.4 Reports
Summary Shows summary report for selected section cut.
Horiz. Forces Shows horizontal forces report for Wall Design Group. See Section 5.3.1 for more
information about this report.
Vert. Forces Shows vertical forces report for Wall Design Group. See Section 5.3.2 for more information
about this report.
Segment Forces Shows segment forces report for Wall Design Group. See Section 5.4 for more information
about this report.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 58 RAM Structural System

The View/Update Dialog
Status Bar

4.4 Status Bar

The status bar shows the Wall Design Group number of the Wall Design Group that was selected to bring up the
View/Update dialog. Additionally, if a section cut is selected, it shows the story name and section cut label for the
selected section cut.

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 RAM Concrete Shear Wall Reports
5
RAM Concrete Shear Wall output is designed to provide the engineer with all necessary data for the review of
calculations for concrete shear wall design. The reports have been designed to duplicate the information
provided in hand calculations.
Below is a summary of the reports available in RAM Concrete Shear Wall module. A more complete explanation
of the output follows.
Wall Design Group Properties This report correlates the geometric data from the modeler with concrete
shear wall specific data.
Wall Panel Properties A list of wall panels, their geometric data and material properties.
Section Cut Forces This report is available for either horizontal or vertical section cuts. It lists
the forces on each section cut in the section cut's local axis.
Section Cut Segment Forces Forces acting on each horizontal section cut segment reported in the plan of
the section cut segment.
Material Takeoff The total volume and weight of concrete and reinforcing in shear walls.
Section Cut Design Summary A summary of the design checks and reinforcement for a Section Cut.
Wall Panel Reinforcement A list of the reinforcement designed for each wall panel.
Coupling Beam Design A summary of the design checks and reinforcement for a Coupling Beam.
Summary

5.1 Wall Design Group Properties

WDG Num: The Wall Design Group Number.
Story: The story on which the referenced Wall Panel and Wall is found.
Panel Num: Number that uniquely identifies the Wall Panel.
Wall Num: Number that identifies a Wall on a story. This is the same "wall number" used in other
parts of the RAM Structural System.
Centroid: Centroid of the Wall Design Group.
Bar Pattern Template: Horizontal and Vertical Bar Pattern Templates assigned to the Wall Design Group.

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RAM Concrete Shear Wall Reports
Wall Panel Properties

5.2 Wall Panel Properties

Wall Design Group: The Wall Design Group Number.
Story: Story where the Wall Panel can be found.
Panel Num: Number that uniquely identifies the Wall Panel.
Thick: Thickness of the Wall Panel.
Length: Length of Wall Panel.
f'c: Concrete compressive strength for the Wall Panel.
fy: The yield strength for reinforcement in the Wall Panel. This is the value entered in RAM
Modeler when the Wall was created.
Height - Start: Story-to-story height at the start of the Wall Panel.
Height - End: Story-to-story height at the end of the Wall Panel.
Coords: The first set of coordinates listed is the start of the Wall Panel. The second set of
coordinates listed is the end of the Wall Panel. Coordinates are reported in the global
coordinate system.

5.3 Section Cut Forces

The Section Cut Forces reports show the forces on the section cuts for the selected Wall Design Group. Wall
Design Groups can be selected by one of three methods: Single, Fence or All.
This report is available for the horizontal section cuts and the vertical section cuts.

5.3.1 Section Cut Forces - Horizontal

WDG: The Wall Design Group Number.
Story: Story where the section cuts can be found.
Section: Section Cut Label.
LC ID: Number of the Load Combination evaluated to produce the forces.
P: Axial force.
Vmaj: Shear force in the Section Cut's local major direction.
Vmin: Shear force in the Section Cut's local minor direction

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RAM Concrete Shear Wall Reports
Section Cut Segment Forces

Mmaj: Moment acting in the Section Cut's local major direction (about the + minor
axis)
Mmin: Moment acting in the Section Cut's local minor direction (about the - major
axis)
T: Torsion acting on the Section Cut.
Load Case Definitions: A list of the analyzed load cases available for use in combinations.
Concrete Combination A list of the parameters used in the generated load combinations.
Criteria:
Generated Concrete Load A list of the generated load combinations. An * indicates which combinations
Combinations: are selected for use in the design.
User Defined Concrete Load A list of the custom load combinations. An * indicates which combinations are
Combinations: selected for use in the design.

5.3.2 Section Cut Forces - Vertical

WDG: The Wall Design Group number.
Story: Story where the section cuts can be found.
Section: Section Cut Label.
LC ID: Number of the Load Combination evaluated to produce the forces.
P: Axial force.
V: Shear acting in the plane of the Section Cut
M: Moment acting in the place of the Section Cut
Load Case Definitions: A list of the analyzed load cases available for use in combinations.
Concrete Combination A list of the parameters used in the generated load combinations.
Criteria:
Generated Concrete Load A list of the generated load combinations. An * indicates which combinations
Combinations: are selected for use in the design.
User Defined Concrete Load A list of the custom load combinations. An * indicates which combinations are
Combinations: selected for use in the design.

5.4 Section Cut Segment Forces

WDG: Wall Design Group Number
Story: Story where the section cut segments are located.
Segment: Segment Label.

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Section Cut Segment Forces

LC ID: Number of the Load Combination evaluated to produce the forces.

P: Axial force.
Vmaj: Shear force acting in the plane of the Section Cut.
Mmaj: Moment acting in the plane of the Section Cut Segment
Load Case Definitions: A list of the analyzed load cases available for use in combinations.
Concrete Combination A list of the parameters used in the generated load combinations.
Criteria:
Generated Concrete Load A list of the generated load combinations. An * indicates which combinations
Combinations: are selected for use in the design.
User Defined Concrete Load A list of the custom load combinations. An * indicates which combinations are
Combinations: selected for use in the design.

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 Getting Started Quickly
6
The chapter is intended to provide the user with instructional guidance for the most common procedures in the
RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design Module.

6.1 Basic Design Procedure Steps

This section provides the user with a summarized reference of the basic steps involved in conducting the design
in the Concrete Shear Wall Design module.

1. Model the Building in RAM Modeler:

Remember that any walls you wish to design in the RAM Concrete Shear Wall module must be assigned as
lateral members.
2. Run the RAM Frame analysis:
If the building contains steel members, be sure to establish sizes for these members by running RAM Steel
Beam and/or RAM Steel Column before running the RAM Frame analysis. Any load cases (Dead, Live, Wind,
etc.) you wish to consider in the wall module must be considered in the RAM Frame analysis.
3. Open Ram Concrete:
Go to the RAM Concrete Shear Wall module in the RAM Concrete mode sub-menu. Remember that it is not
necessary to run RAM Concrete Analysis, RAM Concrete Beam, or RAM Concrete Column prior to running the
Shear Wall Design module.
4. Select the Design Code:
Use the Criteria > Code… command from the main menu to select the desired concrete design code.
5. Set Design Code Parameters:
Use the Criteria > Code Checks… command from the main menu to review and modify the settings for the
selected design code. The parameters available for modification will depend on the selected design code.
6. Assign Wall Design Groups:
Use the Assign > Wall Design Groups… command from the main menu to group individual wall elements in
the model into a group for analysis and design purposes. Wall elements must be assigned to a Wall Design
Group in order to be designed. The simplest manner to group walls is so that a collection of wall elements
forming a single plane belongs to a single Wall Design Group.
7. Create Bar Pattern Templates:
Use the Assign > Edit Bar Pattern Templates… command to create templates of reinforcing for
consideration during design. Remember that the Bar Pattern Template defines the bar sizes and spacings that
will be available for selection and assignment for each Wall Design Group.
Ideally, Bar Pattern Templates should reflect a certain bar placement standard. If you prefer to vary wall
reinforcement spacing in increments of 4", you should choose a Bar Pattern Template with a spacing

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increment of 4", with appropriate minimum and maximum spacing values. If the standard of a company is to
never use a vertical bar size smaller than a #6 in concrete walls, the Bar Pattern Template assignment should
reflect this.
8. Assign Bar Pattern Templates to Wall Design Groups:
Use the Assign > Bar Pattern Templates… command to assign a Bar Pattern Template to each Wall Design
Group. Note that a Wall Design Group must have a Bar Pattern Template in order to be designed.
9. Assign Bar Patterns to Wall Panels:
This step needs to be done only if you want to assign reinforcing callouts (Bar Patterns) directly to Wall
Panels, as opposed to letting the program choose the best reinforcement. Performing this step will generally
increase the speed of the design process to a significant extent.
10. Create Section Cuts:
Use the Assign > Section Cuts…..Automatic or Manual command to create Section Cuts within Wall Design
Groups. Bear in mind that the more Section Cuts you consider, the more time the design process will take.
Use the Assign > Section Cuts….Delete command to remove any sections you do not want to consider.
11. Create Load Combinations:
Use the Combinations > Generated… or Manual… command to create load combinations for the load cases
analyzed in RAM Frame. Bear in mind that the more load combinations you consider, the more time the
design process will take.
12. Execute the Design Process:
To design a single Wall Design Group, select Process > View/Update… and select the Wall Design Group you
wish to design. To design all Wall Design Groups at once, select Process > Design All .
13. Inspect Failed Sections:
Toggle the Section Cut display in the main window so that the Section Cuts are shown. Execute the View/
Update command and select a Wall Design Group that contains red (failed) Section Cuts. In the 3D view
within the View/Update, select a failed Section Cut. Go to the Warnings tab to review the design failures for
the Section Cut.
14. Review Wall Reinforcement:
Toggle the Bar Pattern display in the main window so that the Bar Patterns are shown. Click on the elevation
view button and select a frame to view in elevation. The Bar Pattern assignments can often be viewed more
clearly when in elevation view mode.
Execute the View/Update command and select a Wall Design Group. Once in View/Update, toggle the
reinforcement display in the 3D view at the left hand side of the dialog. Select the elevation view mode and
select a wall. You should now see all the reinforcing bars in elevation.
Go to the Reinforcement tab within the View/Update and go to the Vertical sub tab. Select a vertical bar in the
3D view within View/Update. Note that the bar is highlighted in both the 3D view and the spreadsheet on the
right hand side.
15. Review Section Cut forces:
Toggle the Section Cut display in the main window so that the Section Cuts are shown. Zoom in on a single
Wall Design Group and toggle the Section Cut labels so that they are displayed. Go to Reports > Section Cut
Forces… and select a Wall Design Group.

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Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

6.2 Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

This section provides the user with detailed steps in using the Shear Wall Design module utilizing a sample RAM
Structural System model. The model ShearWallDemo.rss, which is included with the product installation, is
used in this Section.

1. Start the RAM Structural System:

Open the model ShearWallDemo.rss in the Data directory.
2. Select a Reinforcing Bar Table:
From the RAM Manager, go to Criteria > Concrete Tables. For the purposes of this demonstration, we will
use ASTM reinforcing.
3. Design the model:
Run RAM Steel Beam, RAM Steel Column, and RAM Frame to establish sizes for all unsized members.
4. Enter the RAM Concrete Shear Wall Module:
See Step 0 in the previous Section. Note that for this model, the stoplight for RAM Frame is green, indicating
that the RAM Frame analysis has been performed and thus design forces are ready to be used by the RAM
Concrete Shear Wall module.
5. Modify Display Settings:
This step is not necessary but will make the walls in your model easier to see and work with during your
session in the RAM Concrete Shear Wall module.
Go to View...Members. Go to the Gravity Beam tab and uncheck the Display button (upper left corner). Go to
the Gravity Column tab and perform the same action. Select OK.
6. Select the Design Code:
See Steps in the previous Section. For the purposes of this demonstration, we will select ACI 318-05.
7. Review the Design Code Parameters:
See Steps in the previous Section. For the purposes of this demonstration, we will leave the settings as they
are.
8. Create Wall Design Groups:
Select Assign…Wall Design Groups. Select Add Fence. Rubber band the “west”-most stack of walls in the
model as shown below.

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Right click the mouse to bring the Assign Wall Design Groups dialog back. Note that the Wall Design Group
number has now changed to 2, indicating that the next assignment will default to Wall Design Group number
2. The "new" indicated in parentheses denotes that no walls are currently assigned to Wall Design Group 2.
In the same manner as above, assign the central "C"-shaped wall core to Wall Design Group 2 by rubber
banding the entire core of walls. Assign the "east"-most stack of walls to Wall Design Group 3. Note that you
may also assign walls one a time by using the Single command.

You can review the assignments you have made by toggling the View Wall Design Groups located in the
toolbar at the top of the main screen.

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9. Create Section Cuts:

Click on the Elevation View button in the toolbar.

Select Wall Design Group 1 (west-most group). Select Assign…Section Cuts…Add Automatic. Select the
options shown in the figure below.

Select Single, and select the Wall Design Group. You should see Section Cuts appear on the screen (see figure
below). Select Close.

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Click on the 3D View button in the toolbar. Right click the mouse to bring back the Auto Generated Section
Cuts dialog.

Select Single, and select Wall Design Group 2.

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10. Create Bar Pattern Templates:

Select Assign…Bar Pattern Template, then select Edit Templates at the bottom of the dialog. Note that you
can also get to this menu by selecting Edit Bar Pattern Templates directly from the Assign menu. Specify
the settings shown in the figure below.

Select Add. You will see the Bar Pattern Template appear in the list at the bottom of the dialog. Select OK. You
should now be back in the Assign Bar Pattern Template menu. Select the Bar Pattern Template that was
added. Select Single. Click on each Wall Design Group that was created. Right click the mouse to bring the
dialog back to the screen. Select Close.

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Getting Started Quickly
Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

Review the Bar Pattern Template assignments by toggling the Bar Pattern display button in the toolbar.

11. Create Load Combinations for Design:

Select Combinations…Generated. Select IBC2003 in the Code for Combinations dropdown. Make sure the
check box for each load case is selected. For the Rho parameter, select Use Calculated. Click the Generate
button. Click OK.
Verify that the check boxes for all the Load Combinations in the load combo list are selected.
12. Design Wall Design Group 1:
Select Process…View/Update. Select Wall Design Group 1 (west-most wall group).
The View/Update dialog should appear shortly after issuing the command, populated with the completed
design information.

13. Review Axial-Flexural Design Results:

Make sure you are on the Axial-Flexural tab within the upper-right corner of the View/Update dialog.
Note the toolbar below the 3D view window on the left hand side of the View/Update dialog. Select the
option to display the Section Cut labels (see red arrow in figure below).

In the top, left corner of the View/Update dialog (above the 3D view window), select the Mouse Selects
Section Cut option.

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You should notice that the cursor has turned to a set of cross-hairs. Select any Section Cut in the 3D view
window. You will notice that the axial-flexural design results for the selected Section Cut are displayed in
tabular form in the screen to the right within the Results tab. Each row in the spreadsheet corresponds to a
load combination. Select one of the rows in the spreadsheet. You should see the locally (Mumaj, Mumin) and
globally (Muxx, Muyy) oriented required moments for the selected load combination appear immediately
below the spreadsheet.

Select the Interaction Surface tab. The axial versus flexural plot that appears corresponds to the angle
resulting from Mumaj and Mumin for the selected load combination, referred to as the β angle.

14. Review Shear Design Results:

Select the Shear tab in the upper-right corner of the View/Update dialog. Select any Section Cut in the 3D
view window. Note that the information in the spreadsheet area is updated each time a new section is
selected.

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Getting Started Quickly
Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

15. Modify the Design:

Change the design by trying a new Bar Pattern in one of the Wall Panels.
Select the elevation view button in the toolbar above the 3D view window (see figure below).

Select the Wall Design Group in the 3D view to bring up the elevation view of the Wall Design Group. Using
the zoom command buttons above the 3D view, zoom in on the lower left pier at the first level. Select the
bottom-most Section Cut.

Change to Reinforcing select mode by using the drop down menu shown in the figure below.

Select the vertical reinforcing bar at the far left end of the Wall Panel.

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Getting Started Quickly
Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

Note that the corresponding bar is highlighted in the vertical reinforcing spreadsheet.

Change the bar size to #11. Note that the Section Cuts for the Wall Panel to which the bar belongs have
turned yellow, indicating that the design is not current and needs to be run again.

Make the same change in bar size to the next four cells directly below. Note when a new cell is selected, the
bar is highlighted in the 3D view window. Select the vertical bar at the far right end of the pier.

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Detailed Design Steps with Sample RSS Model

Again, change the bar size to #11. Again, change the sizes of the adjacent four bars to #11 also. Select
Analyze in the upper right corner of the View/Update dialog.
16. Review the Design Results:
Select any Section Cut and choose View Summary in the upper right hand corner of the View/Update dialog.

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 ACI Technical Notes
7
The section provides an overview of the ACI 318-11 code sections that are checked for compliance in the
Concrete Shear Wall Design module. The intent of this section is not to reproduce or elaborate on the code
sections themselves, but rather to identify and explain the properties, quantities, and assumptions the Concrete
Shear Wall module uses when evaluating each code section, with a particular emphasis on the RAM model data.

7.1 Design Criteria

The Design Criteria dialog is accessed from the Criteria > Design Criteria menu. The settings established here
are applied to the entire model. Editing these settings will clear the design results for the model. The parameters
that can be defined are:

Clear Bar Cover The distance the outer edge of the horizontal reinforcement will be placed from the face of
the wall. See Figure in Section 6.2 for more details.
Bar Spacing The user can select to use the bar spacing limits specified by the selected design code, or
can override the code by selecting custom values.
Code Options The concrete shear capacity of walls may be calculated according to 11.9.6, or the more
basic method of 11.9.5.
Sections 11.9.9.3 and 11.9.9.5, pertaining to maximum bar spacing, may give
unrealistically small spacing limits when the length of the wall segment considered is
relatively short. The user may specify a minimum length value to be considered in the
equations within each code section, which will override the true wall segment length in
cases where it is greater.
Structural Wall Wall category as defined in Chapter 21 of ACI 318 to be considered when performing
Category design checks.
IBC Parameters The deflection amplification factor, Cd, and importance factor, I, are specified here. These
values are used in calculating the limiting neutral axis depth, c, for the requirement of
special boundary reinforcement per Section 21.9.6.2.
The user can choose to consider the IBC amendments to ACI 318 contained in Section
1908.
Resistance Factor The user can choose to consider a shear resistance factor of either 0.75 or 0.60.
for Shear
Wall Boundaries Where vertical reinforcing is required to be confined by ties, the bar size used for all ties is
specified here.

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ACI Technical Notes
Clear Cover

7.2 Clear Cover

Section 7.7 of ACI 318-11 specifies concrete protection for reinforcement. The RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design
module checks ACI Section 7.7.1, the minimum cover for cast-in-place concrete. This requirement is manifested
in the placement of the horizontal wall reinforcement. The program always assumes that the horizontal
reinforcement layer is the outer layer (farthest from the wall centerline), while the vertical reinforcement is the
inner layer. The lateral location of the horizontal layer is set based on the clear cover requirement (see Figure
below). Since this is always enforced by the program, no failure messages regarding this ACI section are
delivered.

Figure 53: Basis of bar location in the Shear Wall Design module

7.3 Reinforcement Spacing Limits

This section discusses the spacing limit checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall
module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the necessary checks. The table provides a
summary of the sections of ACI 318-11 covering spacing limits that have been implemented within the program.

Table 4: Summary of implemented ACI 318-11 sections covering bar spacing

ACI 318-11 Bar Spacing Checks

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

7.6.1 Minimum clear bar spacing -

7.6.5 Maximum bar spacing in walls -

14.3.1 Maximum spacing of horizontal 11.9.9.3, 11.9.9.5

shear reinforcement in walls

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ACI Technical Notes
Reinforcement Spacing Limits

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

14.3.5 Maximum spacing of vertical shear -

reinforcement in walls

7.10.5.2 Maximum vertical spacing of ties in -

walls

21.9.2.1 Maximum reinforcement spacing in -

walls

When checking maximum spacing limits, the Shear Wall Design module uses the nominal reinforcement spacing;
that is, the spacing identified in the Bar Pattern. When checking minimum spacing limits, the Shear Wall Design
module uses the true reinforcement spacing considering the way the bars have been placed by the program. This
is done so that the most appropriate value of spacing is used in comparison to each code-prescribed limiting
value.
It is important to note that when spacing checks are performed for a Section Cut, only the bars normal to the
Section Cut will be evaluated for spacing compliance. Thus, in order to check horizontal bars for compliance in a
Wall Panel it is necessary to include at least one vertical Section Cut that intersects the Wall Panel.

7.3.1 Chapter 7
Section 7.6 of ACI 318-11 specifies spacing limits for reinforcement. The RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design
module checks ACI Sections 7.6.1 and 7.6.5 within ACI 7.6. The design process will produce failures if the Bar
Pattern or Manual Reinforcement used for a Wall Panel results in bar spacings that violate either of these limits.
For ACI Section 7.6.5, the wall thickness used for the check is the thickness of the Wall Panel to which the Bar
Pattern or Manual Reinforcement has been assigned. Since each Wall Panel is a constant thickness entity, and
each Wall Panel has only a single Bar Pattern, there is no ambiguity as to the appropriate value of thickness to
use in this calculation.

7.3.2 Chapter 14
The Ram Concrete Shear Wall Design module checks Section 14.3.1 of ACI 318-11, which specifies the minimum
horizontal and vertical reinforcement in walls. This section mandates that the spacing of horizontal and vertical
shear reinforcement in walls complies with ACI Sections 11.9.9.3 and 11.9.9.5, respectively.
Each of the Wall Panels that intersect the Section Cut is checked separately for these provisions using the
respective Wall Panel thickness and Bar Pattern. The parameter lw in 11.9.9.3 and 11.9.9.5 is taken as the length
of the Wall Panel, and the parameter h is taken as the average height of the Wall Panel. For example, for the Wall
Panel shown in Figure below, lw = 25’ and h = 14’. If the Wall Panel has a sloping top and/or bottom edge, the
average of the heights at the start and end of the Wall Panel is used for h.

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ACI Technical Notes
Reinforcement Ratio Limits

Figure 54: Sample Wall Panel and properties used for ACI Sections 11.9.9.3 and 11.9.9.5

The module also considers Section 14.3.5 of ACI 318-11.

7.3.3 Chapter 21
Section 21.9.2.1 of ACI 318-11 limits the reinforcement spacing in walls to 18" in both directions.

7.4 Reinforcement Ratio Limits

This section discusses the reinforcement ratio checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall
module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the necessary calculations. Table below
provides a summary of the sections of ACI 318-11 covering reinforcement ratio that have been implemented
within the program.
Each of the Wall Panels that intersect the Section Cut being evaluated is checked separately for these provisions
using the respective Wall Panel properties and Bar Pattern information. Note that using the Bar Pattern
information rather than the true reinforcing bars has two impacts:
• The nominal bar spacing is used in the calculations rather than the spacing between any two bars as placed in
the wall.
• The patterned reinforcing bar size is used in the calculations rather than the sizes of individual bars. Thus if
the user has edited individual bars, these changes will not be reflected in these calculations.

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ACI Technical Notes
Bar Placement

Table 5: Summary of implemented ACI 318-11 sections covering reinforcing ratio

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

14.3.1 Minimum horiz & vert reinf 11.9.9.2, 11.9.9.4

14.3.2 Minimum vert reinf -

14.3.3 Minimum horiz reinf -

21.9.2.1 Minimum web reinf -

21.9.4.3 Minimum long reinf -

The RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design module checks Sections 14.3.1, 14.3.2, and 14.3.3 of ACI 318-11, which
specify the horizontal and vertical reinforcement ratio limits in walls. Section 14.3.1 mandates that the minimum
horizontal and vertical shear reinforcement ratios in walls comply with ACI Sections 11.9.9.2 and 11.9.9.4,
respectively. When the provisions of Chapter 21.9 are considered (Special Reinforced Concrete Structural Wall),
Sections 21.9.2.1 and 21.9.4.3 are also checked.
In these sections ACI uses the following terms:

ρl = Ratio of area of distributed longitudinal reinforcement to gross concrete area perpendicular to that
reinforcement.
ρt = Ratio of area of distributed transverse reinforcement to gross concrete area perpendicular to that
reinforcement.

Despite the above definitions given by ACI, ρl is also used within ACI 318-11 to denote horizontal reinforcing
(e.g., 11.9.9.2), and ρt is also used to denote vertical reinforcing (e.g., 11.9.9.4). To resolve this, the following
approach is used within the Shear Wall Design module:
In cases where ρlis referenced and the text within the ACI code section specifically mentions “vertical”
reinforcing, ρlis calculated using the area of vertical reinforcing resulting from the Bar Pattern. If “vertical”
reinforcing is not specifically referenced, the area of reinforcing is calculated using the area of the reinforcing
bars that intersect and are normal to the Section Cut Segment under consideration.
In cases where ρt is referenced and the text within the ACI code section specifically mentions “horizontal”
reinforcing, ρt is calculated using the area of horizontal reinforcing resulting from the Bar Pattern. If “horizontal”
reinforcing is not specifically referenced, the area of reinforcing is calculated using the Bar Pattern that is
parallel to the Section Cut Segment under consideration.
Sections 11.9.9.3 and 11.9.9.5 both specify spacing limits that are a function of the overall length of the wall, lw.
RAM uses the Section Cut Segment length for this value. The limitation of this assumption is that for very short
wall segments, the limit spacing will likewise be small. Since the calculated spacing limit is compared to the
nominal bar spacing and not the true bar spacing, false check failures may be reported for short wall segments.

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ACI Technical Notes
Axial/Flexural Strength

7.5 Bar Placement

This section discusses the bar placement checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall
Design module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the checks. Table below provides a
summary of the sections of ACI 318-11 covering bar placement that have been implemented within the program.

Table 6: Summary of implemented ACI 318-11 sections covering bar placement

ACI 318-11 Reinforcing Bar Placement Checks

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

14.3.4 Number of bar layers -

14.3.6 Requirement of ties -

21.9.2.2 Number of bar layers -

Section 14.3.4 is not considered during the optimization process. The number of bar layers is assigned directly
by the user in the Bar Pattern Template assignment or by changing the number of Layers on the Reinforcing
page. Rather, designs that violate Section 14.3.4 will generate a design failure.
Section 14.3.6 likewise does not drive the design process and a warning (see Section 4.2.6 for an explanation of
the differences between design warnings and design failures) will be delivered if the check does not comply with
the code requirement. In calculating the ratio of the vertical reinforcing area to the gross concrete area, the
following methods are employed:
• The area of vertical steel per unit length for each Bar Pattern is divided by the thickness of the respective
Wall Panel.
• For individual bars that have been modified by the user, the area of the bar is divided by half the total
distance to the adjacent bar on each side, and divided again by the Wall Panel thickness.
If either of the quantities calculated above fail the code check, a design failure will be delivered to the user.

7.6 Axial/Flexural Strength

This section discusses the axial-flexural checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall
Design module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the necessary calculations. Table
below provides a summary of the sections of ACI 318-11 covering axial-flexural evaluation that have been
implemented within the program.

Table 7: Summary of implemented ACI 318-11 sections covering axial-flexural strength

ACI 318-11 Axial-Flexural Strength Checks

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

10.3.1 Behavioral assumptions 10.2

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ACI Technical Notes
Axial/Flexural Strength

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

10.3.5 Minimum steel strain at nominal -

strength

10.3.6 Maximum design axial strength -

10.3.7 Basis of flexural strength -

The axial-flexural evaluation of a Section Cut is conducted by generating a three-dimensional interaction

capacity surface where axial load is the ordinate and the moments about the Section Cut major and minor axes
are the abscissa values. The combined loads acting at each Section Cut are plotted in the P-M-M space to
determine if the Section Cut passes the check.
The interaction value for each load combination is calculated as the ratio of the distance in P-M space to the
ultimate load data point, LD, to the distance to the intersection of the capacity surface, LC (see Figure below). An
interaction value in excess of 1.0 is considered a design failure.

Figure 55: Parameters for calculation of axial-flexural interaction ratio

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ACI Technical Notes
Special Boundary Element Check

Figure 56: Sample axial-flexural interaction diagram at angle β = 0.

7.7 Special Boundary Element Check

The special boundary element requirements of ACI 318-11, 21.9.6.2 are evaluated when considering the special
seismic requirements in the design. The evaluation is limited to load combinations that contain an earthquake
term ("Seismic" or "Dynamic" load case). The module performs a separate special boundary element check for
each load combination that contains an earthquake load term. This check is performed only for horizontal
Section Cuts that have been assigned as hinges. Referring to Section 3.2.6, this requires that the user accurately
identify the Section Cuts in the structure that will hinge in the event the structure acts as a mechanism (see
Figure below).

Figure 57: Wall hinging at failure mechanism

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ACI Technical Notes
Special Boundary Element Check

7.7.1 Limiting Neutral Axis Calculation

ACI 318-11, 21.9.6.2 states that compression zones shall be reinforced with special boundary elements when:
lw ACI (21-8)
c≥ δu
600
hw

where
lw = Length of entire wall or length of segment of wall considered in direction
of shear force
δu = Design displacement = Cd δ e
δe = Horizontal displacement from elastic analysis for a given load condition
Cd = Displacement amplification factor per building code
hw = Height of entire wall from base to top or height of the segment of wall
considered
c = Largest neutral axis depth calculated for the factored axial force and
nominal moment strength consistent with δu.
RAM calculates the parameter lw as the overall horizontal dimension of the wall panel or core as measured in the
direction of loading for a specific load combination.

Figure 58: Dimensional assumptions for calculation of limiting c value per ACI 318-11, Eq 21-8

The parameter δ e is measured as the horizontal displacement at the centroid of the top of the Wall Design
Group, minus the displacement at the centroid of the Section Cut for the respective load combination. The value
is formulated from the lateral displacements solved for in RAM Frame and can be verified from the Load
Combinations mode in RAM Frame. The displacements for each load case are combined according to the
respective load combination under consideration in the Shear Wall Design module. The parameter hw is taken as
the vertical distance from the bottom of the story at which the Section Cut is located to the overall top of the Wall
Design Group.

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ACI Technical Notes
Special Boundary Element Check

Figure 59: Assumptions for calculation of δ u per ACI 318-11, Eq 21-8

The neutral axis calculation uses the factored axial load Pu that acts on the entire Section Cut. From this, the
nominal moment strength coincident with the applied axial load is determined along with the corresponding
neutral axis depth (see the following pair of figures).

Figure 60: Determination of nominal moment strength used in calculation of neutral axis location.

Figure 61: Calculation of neutral axis depth c coincident with applied load Pu and nominal moment strength Mn.

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ACI Technical Notes
Shear Strength

7.7.2 Required Horizontal Extents of Boundary

Once the neutral axis depth for a load combination has been calculated as described in Section 7.7.1, the
required boundary length is found from ACI Section 21.9.6.4(a). Here it is stated that the boundary shall extend
horizontally from the extreme compression fiber a distance not less than the larger of:
• c - 0.1lw
• c/2
where lw and c are defined in Section 7.7.1.
Figure below illustrates the View/Update, Boundary Elements page for an "L"-shaped Section Cut. The black dot
in the cross-section sketch identifies the point of extreme compression in the Section Cut. The dimension
extending from the point of extreme compression is the required boundary length for the currently selected load
combination. Note that this dimension extends from the point of extreme compression at the angle β
corresponding to the selected load combination.

Figure 62: Special boundary element evaluation in View/Update

7.8 Shear Strength

This section discusses the shear checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall Design
module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the necessary calculations. The table below
provides a summary of the sections of ACI 318-11 covering shear evaluation that have been implemented within
the program.

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ACI Technical Notes
Shear Strength

Table 8: Summary of implemented ACI 318-11 sections covering shear strength

ACI 318-11 Shear Strength Checks

Code Section Referenced Code Sections

14.2.3 11.9.1 - 11.9.7

14.3.1 11.9.9.1

21.9.4.1 -

21.9.4.2 -

21.9.4.5 -

The program performs the shear evaluation on Section Cut Segments. This is in contrast to the axial-flexural
evaluation, which is performed on Section Cuts. The value of d as described in ACI 11.9.4 is taken as 0.8
multiplied by the length of the Section Cut Segment. The design forces used are those acting on the Section Cut
Segment. Since a Section Cut Segment is a planar entity, there will be only a single component of shear and a
single component of flexure (in addition to axial load), both acting in the plane of the segment.
Figure below shows an example of two Section Cut Segments in a Wall Panel (the Wall Panel is highlighted in
orange). Wall Panel 86 contains two Section Cut Segments. Section Cut Segment "SC1H:1C" is one segment
within Section Cut "SC1H:1", which forms three segments that wrap around the wall core. A separate shear
check will be performed for this segment, as well as the two other segments that comprise the Section Cut.
Section Cut "SC1H:3" contains only one segment and thus the Section Cut Segment label is the same as the
Section Cut label. A separate shear check will be performed for this segment as well.

Figure 63: Horizontal Section Cut Segments within a Wall Panel.

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ACI Technical Notes
Shear Strength

7.8.1 Chapter 14
This section references Sections 11.9.1 through 11.9.7. Section 11.9.2 specifies that the in-plane shear evaluation
of walls shall be based on ACI equations (11-1) and (11-2).
ϕVn ≥ Vu ACI (11-1)
Vn = Vc + Vc ACI (11-2)
For walls subject to axial compression, Vc is calculated in accordance with 11.9.5.

V c = 2λ f ′c hd
where
h = thickness of the Wall Panel being evaluated
d = 0.8lw (per Section 11.9.4)
For walls subject to axial tension, Vc is calculated in accordance with 11.2.2.3.

(
Vc = 2 1 +
Nu
500Ag )λ f ′c bw d
ACI (11-8)

where
Nu = Combined axial load acting on the Section Cut being evaluated
Ag = Gross concrete area of the Section Cut Segment being evaluated
Vs is calculated according to Section 11.9.9.1.
Av f y d ACI (11-29)
Vs = s
where
Av = Area of horizontal shear reinforcement within spacing s. RAM uses the bar
area and nominal spacing associated with the Bar Pattern used for the
Wall Panel that the Section Cut Segment intersects. Thus, even if individual
bars within the Wall Panel have been changed by the user, the patterned
bar will still be used for this calculation. The exception is the case where
all bars have been overridden to the same size. In the case the modified
size will be used for the calculation.

7.8.2 Chapter 21
The shear strength specified in 21.9.4.1 is calculated as:

(
V n = Acv αc f ′
c + ρt f y ) ACI (21-7)

The parameter α c is a function of the length and height of the wall segment. RAM uses the length of the Section
Cut Segment to determine lw, and uses the transverse distance associated with the Section Cut Segment to
determine hw. For example, for the Wall Panel shown in Figure below, Section Cut Segments SC1H:79 and SC1H:
80 will have an hw value equal to the height of the door. Whereas Section Cut Segments SC1H:19B and SC1H:81
will have an hw value equal to the height of the entire Wall Panel.

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ACI Technical Notes
Coupling Beam Design

Figure 64: Horizontal Section Cut Segments within a Wall Panel.

The parameter ρt is calculated as the reinforcing ratio of the Bar Pattern parallel to the Section Cut Segment
being evaluated.

7.9 Coupling Beam Design

This section discusses the coupling beam checks that are implemented within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall
Design module and the assumptions made by the program when performing the necessary calculations.

Table 9: ACI 318-11 Coupling Beam Checks

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

10.6.7 Side bars

11.2.1.1 Shear strength provided by

concrete (no axial)

11.2.1.2 Shear strength provided by

concrete (compression)

11.2.2.3 Shear strength provided by

concrete (tension)

11.4.5.1 Max shear reinforcement spacing

11.4.5.3 Max shear reinforcement spacing 11.4.5.1

11.4.6.1 Min shear reinforcement

11.4.6.3 Min shear reinforcement 11.4.6.1

11.4.7.2 Shear strength provided by steel

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 89 RAM Structural System

ACI Technical Notes
Coupling Beam Design

Code Section Limit Check Referenced Code Sections

11.4.7.9 Max shear strength provided by

steel

21.9.7.1 Relevant checks 21.5

21.9.7.2 Diagonal reinforcement - permitted

21.9.7.3 Diagonal reinforcement - required

21.9.7.4 Diagonal reinforcing requirements 21.6.4

21.5.1.1 Compressive stress limit

21.5.1.2 Clear span limit

21.5.1.3 Min width

21.5.2.1 Min reinforcement 10.5.3

21.5.2.2 Min flexural strength

21.5.3.2 Hoop requirements

21.5.3.4 Stirrup requirements

21.5.4.1 Design forces

21.5.4.2 Transverse reinforcement 21.5.3.1, 21.5.4.1

7.9.1 Flexural Strength

The basic flexural strength calculations for Coupling Beams are conducted in the same manner as for Section
Cuts. Axial-flexural capacity and the resulting interaction ratio are calculated according to Section 7.6 of this
manual.
Chapter 21 flexural checks are performed if the design criteria specify a Special Reinforced Concrete Wall
system. In this case, the limitations placed on reinforcing ratio and positive/negative flexural strength required
by ACI sections 21.5.2.1 and 21.5.2.2 are enforced. Design failure messages will be presented in the Design
Warnings tab of the View/Update dialog if they are not satisfied. For the provisions of ACI section 21.5.2.2, the
flexural strength is evaluated assuming zero axial load exists at the cross section.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 90 RAM Structural System

ACI Technical Notes
ACI-318 2014

7.9.2 Shear Strength

Unlike Section Cuts through Wall Panels, for which the ACI 318 Chapter 11 section "Special Provisions for Walls"
is used to calculate wall shear strength, Coupling Beams use the section "Shear Strength Provided by Concrete
for Nonprestressed Members."

7.9.3 Transverse Reinforcement

The program places transverse reinforcing uniformly over the entire length of the coupling beam. The shear
strength provided by steel is based on the number of curtains of vertical steel when uniform layout is selected,
and two shear legs when a non-uniform reinforcing layout is used. Since the transverse reinforcing is assumed to
be uniformly distributed at a single spacing over the entire length of the coupling beam, the requirements of ACI
section 21.5.3 are enforced by the program such that the more rigorous reinforcement typically required only at
the outer portions of the span is placed over the entire span.
The calculation of Mpr prescribed by ACI section 21.5.4.1 is conducted assuming zero axial load on the section.

7.9.4 Diagonal Reinforcement

Diagonal reinforcing requirements of 21.9.7 are implemented only in the sense that the user is warned when
diagonal bars are required for a coupling beam. The design of the reinforcement is not performed.

7.10 ACI-318 2014

This section discusses the features that are implemented or changed due the implementation of ACI 318-14
within the RAM Concrete Shear Wall module and the assumptions made by the program when selecting this ACI
Code.

7.10.1 Number of Curtains of Reinforcement

This section discusses the requirement given in ACI 318-14 Sec. 18.10.2.2 and the assumptions the program
performs in order to check it. In this way, at least two curtains of reinforcement are required in the program
when:
V u > 2Acv λ f c '
or
hw ACI 318-14 (18.10.2.2)
lw
≥ 2.0

where

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ACI Technical Notes
ACI-318 2014

Acv = Gross area of concrete section bounded by web thickness and length of
section in the direction of shear force considered.
λ = Modification factor to reflect the reduced mechanical properties of
lightweight concrete relative to normal-weight concrete of the same
compressive strength.
lw = Length of entire wall.
hw = Height of entire wall.
RAM calculates the parameter Acv as the product of the thickness and the length of the section. For λ, the
program considers the value for normal weight concrete.
The parameter lw as the overall horizontal dimension of the wall panel or core as measured in the direction of
loading for a specific load combination (see Figure 1 (on page 84)).
The parameter hw is taken as the vertical distance from the bottom of the story at which the Section Cut is
located to the overall top of the Wall Design Group.

7.10.2 Special Boundary Element Check

Displacement method
ACI 318-14 18.10.6.2 limits the special boundary requirement based on the displacement method to those walls
that meet the following condition:
h w / lw ≥ 2.0 ACI 318-14 (18.10.6.2)

RAM Concrete Shear Wall evaluates the limiting boundary neutral axis calculation only when ACI 318-14
(18.10.6.2) meets.

Stress-based method
According to ACI 318-14 18.10.6.3, when 18.10.6.2 does not apply, the program requires special boundary
elements at boundaries and edges around openings of Shear walls when:
E > 0.2 f c ' ACI 318-14 (18.10.6.3)
where
E = Maximum compressive stress calculated within the load combinations
including earthquake effects.

7.10.3 Limiting Boundary Neutral Axis Calculation

RAM Concrete Shear Wall performs the check of the neutral axis depth according to ACI 318-14, 18.10.6.2. This
Section code states that compression zones shall be reinforced with special boundary elements when:
lw ACI 318-14 (18.10.6.2)
c≥ 1.5δu
600
hw

where

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ACI Technical Notes
ACI-318 2014

c = Largest neutral axis depth calculated for the factored axial force and
nominal moment strength consistent with du.
lw, d u, d e, Cd, hw, and c are defined in 7.7.1.

7.10.4 Minimum boundary thickness

RAM Concrete Shear Wall checks the boundary thickness according to ACI 318-14 Sec. 18.10.6.4 (b) and (c). For
each section cut, where boundary is required, the program considers the following requirements:
b ≥ h u / 16 ACI 318-14 18.10.6.4 (b)

If h w / lw ≥ 2.0 and c / lw ≥ 3 / 8:

b ≥ 12 ACI 318-14 18.10.6.4 (c)

where
b = the Width of the flexural compression zone. Considered by the program as
the boundary thickness.
hu = the laterally unsupported height at extreme compression fiber of wall, in.

Note: The value of hu considered by the program to apply ACI 318-14

18.10.6.4 (b) is the Wall Panel height.

hw, lw, and c are defined in Section Limiting Neutral Axis Calculation (on page 84).

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 BS8110 Technical Notes
8
8.1 Design Criteria
The Design Criteria dialog is accessed from the Criteria > Design Criteria menu. The parameters that can be
defined are:

Concrete Cover Value to be used in setting out bars in cross-sections.

Design Lifetime This determines the limiting value of cover and concrete grade for the required design life.
Exposure Class This determines the limiting value of cover and concrete grade for the required level of
exposure.
Fire Resistance This determines the limiting value of cover, wall thickness for the required fire resistance.

8.2 Axial-Flexural Design

The axial-flexural limit state is checked at every horizontal and vertical section cut within the wall design group,
using the provisions of BS 8110-1:1997 Clause 3.9.3.
In determining the axial-flexural strength of a cross-section the material behavior defined in BS8110-1:1997
Clause 2.5.4 is assumed.
The combined effects of in-plane moments, transverse moments and axial loads are considered according to
3.9.3.6.4 (c), assuming that all three effects are distributed evenly throughout the cross section and that the
assumptions of beam engineering theory applies.

8.3 Shear Design

Shear strength is considered at horizontal and vertical section cuts using the provisions for beams given in
BS8110-1:1997 Clause 3.4.5.
Vertical section cuts intersect only one wall and will therefore have rectangular cross-sections. Hence,
application of Clause 3.4.5 is straightforward.

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BS8110 Technical Notes
Shear Design

Horizontal section cuts can have more complex cross-sections since they may intersect multiple walls in the wall
design group. The method described below has been used to apply the code provision to a wall group composed
of a number of walls oriented arbitrarily.

8.3.1 Assumptions
1. The effect of any horizontal links perpendicular to the length of the wall will be ignored, but the effect of
horizontal links occurring along the length of the walls will be considered in determining the shear capacity
of the wall group.
2. The contribution of a wall segment to shear resistance of the whole section cut is proportional to the
projection of its length in the direction of shear resistance being considered. Walls oriented perpendicular to
the direction of shear design will not contribute to the shear resistance.
3. Vertical longitudinal reinforcement can either be present in 2 layers (at each face of the wall) or in one layer
(along the midline of the walls).

8.3.2 Methodology
The wall group shown below will be used to illustrate the method adopted.

Figure 66:

Calculation of shear capacity vc for the wall group

1. Each wall segment will be considered in turn. For each wall segment, the calculation of vc will be made
according to the equation in BS8110:1 Table 3.8. The calculation will be performed in the following manner:
• bv will be taken as the thickness of wall (b) immaterial of the orientation of the wall segment.
• d will be measured along the length of wall segment (e.g., dB for wall B above).
• The shear force capacity of the segment will be determined by multiplying the value of vc by (bv.d)
• This shear force capacity will be resolved in the direction of the shear force being considered for design.
This implies that wall segments perpendicular to the design direction will not contribute to the shear
capacity of the wall group.

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BS8110 Technical Notes
Serviceability & Detailing Checks

2. The values of the resolved shear force capacity are summed up for all the wall segments.
3. The total shear force capacity is divided by the shear area in the direction of shear force being considered for
design to obtain vc.

Determination of the shear area for wall group Av

To determine the shear area in the direction of shear force being considered for design, the following equation
will be adopted:
Av = Σbvproj.d
where
Σ = represents summation for all wall segments in the wall group
bvproj = is the thickness of the wall projected in the direction perpendicular to
the direction of shear being considered for design. This implies that
walls perpendicular to the shear direction will not influence Av.
d = is the length of the wall segment along its length

Calculation of area of shear reinforcement required

The equation given in Table 3.7 of BS8110-1 is utilised:

( ) Asv
bv sv req
≥
(v − vc )
0.87 f yv

where
v = F
v
the shear stress for the wall group calculated as: A , with Av calculated as
v
in the preceding section.

8.4 Serviceability & Detailing Checks

The following sections of BS 8110-1:1997 are considered when checking a section for serviceability:

Table 10:

Clause Description

3.12.6.3 Maximum Longitudinal Reinforcement

3.12.11.1 Minimum Longitudinal Reinforcement Spacing

3.12.7.1 Times New Roman

3.12.7.1 Minimum Tie Bar Size

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BS8110 Technical Notes
Fire Resistance

Clause Description

3.12.7.4 / Minimum Longitudinal Reinforcement

3.12.7.5
Minimum Transverse Area
Minimum Transverse Bar Size
Maximum Transverse Bar Spacing

8.5 Fire Resistance

The provisions of BS 8110-1:1997 Clause 3.3.6 are implemented to determine the limiting cover and member
thickness for the amount of fire resistance specified in the Design Criteria dialog.

8.6 Exposure
The provisions of BS 8110-1:1997 Clauses 3.3.4 and 3.3.5 are implemented to determine the limiting cover for
the required level of exposure specified in the Design Criteria dialog.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 97 RAM Structural System

 CP 65 Technical Notes
9
The CP 65 implementation in RAM Concrete Shear Wall conforms to CP 65-1:1996 "Code of practice for
structural use of concrete - Part 1: Design and construction". This code is hereafter referred to simply as CP 65.
Given that the CP 65 design code is virtually identical to BS 8110-1:1997, with the exceptions of the differences
described in the following section, the implementation of CP 65 in RAM Concrete Shear Wall is identical to that
of BS 8110 and the technical details related to BS 8110 can be taken to apply to CP 65.

9.1 Differences between BS8110 and CP65

The following are the technical differences between the implementation of CP 65 and BS 8110 in RAM Concrete
Shear Wall
1. In CP 65, the concrete shear capacity without shear reinforcement (vc) given in Table 3.9 differs from that in
BS 8110.
2. In CP 65, the minimum allowable concrete strength in structural concrete is 30N/mm² as opposed to
25N/mm² in BS 8110.
3. It should also be noted that the partial safety factor for reinforcement γm is 1.15 in CP 65 which is equal to
that used in BS 8110-1:1997 Amendment 3.

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 AS3600 Technical Notes
10
In the technical notes hereunder, any reference to code sections or clauses should be taken to refer to AS 3600 -
2001.

10.1 Design Criteria

The Design Criteria dialog is accessed from the Criteria > Design Criteria menu. The parameters that can be
defined are:

Concrete Cover Value to be used in setting out bars in cross-sections.

Exposure Class The exposure class, together with the degree of crack control required have an effect of the
minimum allowable horizontal reinforcement in the wall. The appropriate limit is taken from
section 11.6.2 of the code.
Crack Control This defines the degree of crack control desired as defined in section 11.6.2 of the code. A
selection of “none” indicates to RAM ShearWall that the wall is not restrained horizontally
and no crack control checks are desired.
Fire Resistance This determines the limiting value of cover, wall thickness for the required fire resistance
according to sections 5.7.2 and 5.7.4 of the code.

10.2 Axial-Flexural Design

The axial-flexural limit state is checked at every horizontal and vertical section cut within the wall design group,
using the provisions of clause 11.2.6
In determining the axial-flexural strength of a cross-section the concrete behavior defined in Clause 6.1.4 (a) is
assumed, and an elasto-plastic stress-strain curve for steel is adopted.
The combined effects of in-plane moments, transverse moments and axial loads are considered assuming that all
three effects are distributed evenly throughout the cross section and that the assumptions of beam engineering
theory applies.
The stressed state of the section under consideration is determined, and checks are made to ensure that the
material limits are not exceeded.

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AS3600 Technical Notes
Shear Design

10.3 Shear Design

Shear strength is considered at horizontal and vertical section cuts using the provisions for beams given in
11.5.3, 11.5.4 and 11.5.5.
Vertical section cuts intersect only one wall and will therefore have rectangular cross-sections. Hence,
application of these clauses is straightforward.
Horizontal section cuts can have more complex cross-sections since they may intersect multiple walls in the wall
design group. The method described below has been used to apply the code provision to a wall group composed
of a number of walls oriented arbitrarily.

10.3.1 Assumptions
1. The effect of any horizontal links perpendicular to the length of the wall will be ignored, but the effect of
horizontal links occurring along the length of the walls will be considered in determining the shear capacity
of the wall group.
2. The contribution of a wall segment to shear resistance of the whole section cut is proportional to the
projection of its length in the direction of shear resistance being considered. Walls oriented perpendicular to
the direction of shear design will not contribute to the shear resistance.
3. Vertical longitudinal reinforcement can either be present in 2 layers (at each face of the wall) or in one layer
(along the midline of the walls).

10.3.2 Methodology
The wall group shown below will be used to illustrate the method adopted.

Figure 68:

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AS3600 Technical Notes
Serviceability & Detailing Checks

Calculation of shear capacity Vu for the wall group

Every wall segment will be considered in turn. For each wall segment, the calculation of Vu will be made
according to the equations in 11.5.3, 11.5.4 and 11.5.5. The calculation will be performed in the following
manner:
Assuming a shear direction parallel to the x-axis:
• tw will be taken as the thickness of wall (t) immaterial of the orientation of the wall segment.
• Lw will be the length of the wall resolved in the direction of shear (e.g., LW (b) for wall B above and 0 for wall
A).
The value of Vu for the whole cross-section is the sum of the values of Vu obtained for every segment.

10.4 Serviceability & Detailing Checks

The following sections of AS3600-2001 are considered when checking a section for serviceability:

Table 11:

Clause Description

10.7.1 Maximum Longitudinal Reinforcement

11.6.1(a) Minimum Longitudinal Reinforcement

11.6.1(b) Minimum Transverse Reinforcement

11.6.2 Minimum Horizontal Reinforcement for Crack Control

11.6.3 Minimum Longitudinal Bar Spacing

Maximum Longitudinal Bar Spacing

11.6.4 Longitudinal Bar Containment

10.5 Fire Resistance

The provisions of AS3600-2001 Clause 5.7.2 and 5.7.4 are implemented to determine the limiting cover and
member thickness for the amount of fire resistance specified in the Design Criteria dialog.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 101 RAM Structural System

 Eurocode 2 Technical Notes
11
Engineering design notes for the BS EN 1992-1-1: 2004 (EC2) code.

11.1 Axial-Flexural Design

Forces in the horizontal and vertical section cuts in shear walls are obtained from finite element analysis
performed in RAM Frame.
Axial-Flexural design is performed by checking every section cut under every load combination against the
ultimate PMM envelope of the section cut.
The PMM envelope is determined using a rectangular stress block for concrete according to 3.1.7 (3), and a bi-
linear stress-strain relationship for steel according to 3.2.7 (2) (b).
If the PMM limit is exceeded, the design optimizer increases the bar pattern adopted in the current wall panel
until a valid design is obtained whilst also ensuring that previously designed section cuts in the same wall panel
are still satisfactory.

11.2 Shear Design

The assumptions and methodology used for the design of shear according to EC2 are similar to those adopted in
AS3600. Please refer to 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 with the only difference being that calculation of Vu (Vrd,c) is according
to 6.2.2 (1).

11.3 Detailing and Serviceability Checks

The program checks the longitudinal and transverse reinforcement in horizontal section cuts for detailing and
serviceability according to the following clauses:

Clause Description

8.2 (2) Minimum clear distance (horizontal and vertical) between individual parallel bars.

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Eurocode 2 Technical Notes
Detailing and Serviceability Checks

Clause Description

9.6.2(3) Maximum distance between vertical bars.

9.6.3(2) Maximum distance between horizontal bars.

9.6.2(1) Minimum & Maximum area of vertical reinforcement.

9.6.3(1) Minimum area of horizontal reinforcement.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 103 RAM Structural System

 GB 50010 Technical Notes
12
If GB 50010 is selected as the design code in the concrete analysis module then design is based on the
requirements of the Chinese design code: Design of Concrete Structures (GB 50010-2002). The implementations
of the sections of the code accounting for the design of concrete beams are subject to certain assumptions and
limitations as outlined in these technical notes.
The following codes have also been considered in the implementation:
• Code for seismic design of buildings (GB 50011-2001)
• Technical specification for concrete structures of tall buildings (JGJ 3-2002).

12.1 Limitations
The body of the detailed shear wall design report is only available in metric units and Chinese.
The user cannot change the reinforcing table used. A predefined table consisting of the following bar sizes is
available for use:

Table 12:

Size #6 #8 #10 #12 #16 #18 #20 #22 #25 #28 #32 #36 #40 #50

Bend. 6 8 10 12 16 18 20 22 25 28 32 36 40 50
Radius mm

12.2 Design Principles

The factors used for force adjustment in the shear wall module are based on the table below.

Member Type SI 9,I I II III Notes

The Shear wall Strengthen M 1.8 1.5 1.5 1.25 1.0 (10.2.14)
in transframe story and (7.2.10)
above story V 1.9 1.7* 1.6 1.4 1.2

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GB 50010 Technical Notes
Design Principles

Member Type SI 9,I I II III Notes

Non- M 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.0 1.0 (7.2.6) (4.9.2)

Strengthen
story V 1.2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

Normal Frame Strengthen M 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 (7.2.10)

story and (4.9.2-4)
above story V 1.9 1.7* 1.6 1.4 1.2

Non- M 1.2*1.1 1.2 1.2 1.0 1.0 (7.2.6) (4.9.2)

Strengthen
story V 1.2 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

Tall Building Strengthen M 1.1 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 (7.1.2)

story and
above story V 1.9 1.7 1.6 1.4 1.2

Non- M 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.0 1.0 (7.2.6) (4.9.2)

Strengthen (7.1.2)
story V 1.2*1.4 1.0*1.4 1.0*1.4 1.0*1.2 1.0

Note: For the seismic grade 9, the shear-force factor 1.7 is used. Clause 6.2.8.

12.2.1 Code Clauses Implemented

The following lists the code clauses within 3.8 Shear Wall implemented from GB 50010-2002.

3.8.1 General
3.8.1.1 Symbols. Program Conforms
3.8.1.2 Cover thickness of concrete. 9.2.1
3.8.1.3 Spacing of reinforcement bar in shear wall.
3.8.1.4 Ratio of reinforcement bar with non-seismic-load load combination.
3.8.1.5 Limiting values of shear-wall thickness.

3.8.2 Seismic
3.8. 2 .1 Forces adjustment performed, Chapter 11 of JGJ and Chapter 7 GB 50010.
3.8.2.2 Limiting value of axial force ratio for short shear-wall.
3.8.2.3 Ratio of reinforcement with seismic-load load combination.
3.8.2.4 Limiting value of shear-wall thickness for seismic resistant.
3.8.2.5 Limiting value of diameter for reinforcement bars.
3.8.2.6 The end resistant member for shear-wall design.
3.8.2.7 Coupling beam design, JGJ 7.1.8

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GB 50010 Technical Notes
Design Principles

3.8.3 Load-bear capacity design

3.8.3.1 Normal section compressive load-bearing capacity (bending), Appendix F.
3.8.3.2 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force of shear-wall. 10.5.4
3.8.3.3 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force with eccentric compression of shear-wall. 10.5.5
3.8.3.4 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force with eccentric tensile of shear-wall. 10.5.6
3.8.3.5 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force in seismic load. 11.7.4
3.8.3.6 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force (include seismic forces) with eccentric compression of shear-
wall. 11.7.5
3.8.3.7 Load-bearing capacity for shear-force (include seismic forces) with eccentric tensile of Shear-wall.
11.7.6

N/A is to be interpreted as either not application or not implemented.

Clauses that do not appear in the list are deemed not to be considered by the program.

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 106 RAM Structural System

 Index
Numerics Hinge 25 D
List Section Cuts 26
3D View 36 Delete Section Cuts 24
Wall Design Groups 23
Design All 31
Autogenerate Section Cuts 23
design codes
A Autogenerated Section Cuts 23
selection 22
ACI Automatic Generation 14
Design Codes 22
Reinforcement Ratio Limits Axial-Flexural 18
Design Criteria 76, 94, 99
79 Axial/Flexural 18, 42
Design Loads 7
Reinforcement Spacing Axial/Flexural Design 94, 99
Design Procedure
77–79 Axial/Flexural Strength 81
Example 65
ACI Code
design procedures
Axial/Flexural Strength 81
Bar Placement 80
B basic steps 64
Bar Pattern 19 Design Warnings 54
Boundary Elements 83
Bar Pattern Template 18 DXF Elevation Numbers 30
Clear Cover 77
Bar Pattern Templates 26
Design Criteria 76
Neutral Axis Calculation 91
Bar Patterns 27, 44–47 E
Bar Placement 80
Reinforcement Ratio Limits EC2 102
Boundary Elements 48, 49, 83
89 Edit Bar Pattern Templates 30
BS8110 94
Shear Strength 86–88, 90 Example 65
BS8110 Code
ACI-318 2014 91 Exposure 97
Axial/Flexural Design 94
Add Section Cuts 24
Design Criteria 94
Analyze Button 58
AS3600 Code
Exposure 97 F
Fire Resistance 97 Fire Resistance 97, 101
Axial/Flexural Design 99
Methodology 95, 96 Freeze Reinforcing 32
Design Criteria 99
Serviceability 96
Fire Resistance 101
Shear Design 94
Methodology 100, 101 G
serviceability 101 GB50010
Shear Design 100 C Design Principles 104
Assign Change Section Cuts 24 limitations 104
Add Section Cuts 24 Clear Cover 77 Generated 30, 31
Autogenerated Section Cuts Clear Reinforcing 33 Gravity Walls 8
23 conventions
Bar Pattern Templates 26 section cuts 15, 16
Bar Patterns 27 Coupling Beams 20, 50, 51, 53
H
Change Section Cuts 24 hinges 25
CP65 Code 98
Delete Section Cuts 24 Horizontal Reinforcement
Criteria
DXF Elevation Numbers 30 44–47
Code Checks 22
Edit Bar Pattern Templates Design Codes 22
30

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 107 RAM Structural System

I Reinforcement Selection 7 V
Reinforcement Spacing 77–79
Information Pane 41 Vertical Reinforcement 44–47
reports 60
Interaction Surface Diagram 42 View/update
Reports 58
introduction 6 3D View 36
View/Update
L S Analyze Button 58
Section Cut Axial/Flexural 42
List Section Cuts 26
Automatic Generation 14 Bar Patterns 44–47
Load Combinations
Local Coordinate System 16 Boundary Elements 48, 49
Generated 30, 31
Section Cut Display 55 Coupling Beams 50, 51, 53
User Defined 30, 31
Section Cut Forces 17 Design Warnings 54
Local Coordinate System 16
Serviceability 96, 101 Information Pane 41
Shear 18, 43 Interaction Surface Diagram
M Shear Design 94, 100 42
Mesh Options 40 Shear Forces 43 Mesh Options 40
Methodology 95, 96, 100, 101 Shear Strength 18, 86–88, 90 Optimize Button 57
Sketch Pane 55 Reports 58
Status Bar 59 Section Cut Display 55
N Strength Calculations Shear 43
neutral axis 84 Sketch Pane 55
Axial-Flexural 18
Shear 18 Status Bar 59
O Stress Contours 39 Stress Contours 39
Optimize Button 57 Tie/Link Design 48, 49
Update Database 58
T
P Tie/Link Design 48, 49
Process W
Wall Design Group 8
Design All 31 U Wall Design Groups 23
Update Database 58 Wall Panel Group 9
R User Defined 30, 31
Reinforcement Optimization 20
Reinforcement Ratio Limits 79,
89

RAM Concrete™ Shear Wall Design 108 RAM Structural System