‫ﻣﺆﺗﻤﺮ اﻷزھﺮ اﻟﮭﻨﺪﺳﻲ اﻟﺪوﻟﻲ اﻟﺜﺎﻟﺚ ﻋﺸﺮ‬

AL-AZHAR ENGINEERING
THIRTEENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
DECEMBER 23-25, 2014

Code: C 46

EFFECT OF SHEAR WALL VERTICAL DISCONTINUITY ON THE

BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS UNDER SEISMIC EFFECTS
Mohamed A. Azim Elewa
Department of Civil Engineering, Al-Azhar University

ABSTRACT
The structural form for lateral loads resisting structures has been one of the most imperative topics
for the structural engineering professionals. Moment resisting frames, shear walls, and frame-wall
structures are among the most prevalent structural forms in reinforced concrete high-rise buildings.
For shear walls or frame-wall structures, most code provisions require that the shear wall to be
constant in height from the foundation level to the top floor of building. However, in some of high-
rise buildings, due to architecture necessities or economy purposes, shear walls may be
discontinuously constructed. Vertical discontinuity associated with in-plan discontinuity of shear
walls, by terminating shear walls at a certain level of the building height could possibly alter the
performance of the building in some extent both in local and global behavior. In this paper, effect of
vertical discontinuity of shear walls on the overall performance of high-rise building under seismic
actions is presented. A set of three-dimensional models of 31 story reinforced concrete frame-wall
building with different shear wall discontinuities were investigated under seismic action. Five cases
including a control model were considered. The five model cases have the same characteristics and
configuration with only variation of the in-plan shear wall discontinuity. Vertical discontinuities
associated with peripheral shear walls, portion of core wall, and the entire core wall termination at
intermediate level of the building height were separately examined under seismic action. Dynamic
response spectrum analysis was performed in order to investigate the effect of shear wall vertical
discontinuities on the dynamic demands of the building. Results of time periods, lateral story
displacements, story drifts, story shears and overturning moments were presented and discussed.
© 2014 Faculty of Engineering, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. All rights reserved.
Key words: shear wall discontinuity, High-rise Buildings, seismic, displacements, Drifts,
Shears, Moments
INTRODUCTION
The structural forms for lateral loads resisting structures can be classified into three main groups;
(a) frame system, (b) shear wall system, and (c) combination of the two, the frame-wall system.
Recently, there is a trend, however, to push the height limits of the “core-only” type of shear wall
systems without moment frames even for buildings assigned to high Seismic Design Categories
SDCs [12]. Many factors are primarily influencing the selection of structural form for high-rise
buildings. They include; internal planning, material characteristics and method of construction, the
external architecture treatment, the nature and magnitude of the horizontal loading, and the height
and proportions of the building [2], [3], and [12].
The frame-wall structural system is a combination of frame and wall structure. The frame-
wall structure is very efficient lateral load resisting system where the seismic or wind effects are the
Al-Azhar University Engineering Journal, JAUES
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 EFFECT OF SHEAR WALL VERTICAL DISCONTINUITY ON THE BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS UNDER SEISMIC EFFECTS

crucial effect. The trend of modern structural design of high-rise buildings is to combine different
types of bents: rigid frames, shear walls, coupled shear walls and frame-wall assemblies. There are
many advantages of such a design. Rigid frames interacting with walls provide; a) the required
lateral resistance in the upper stories and (b) beam cross-sections capable of energy dissipation
when the frame are detailed according to the strong column-weak beam philosophy. On the other
hand, the high stiffness of shear walls minimizes story drifts in the lower stories of high-rise
buildings and also offers an effective means of avoiding a soft story mechanism [8].
Shear walls are mainly flexural members and usually provided in high-rise buildings to avoid
the total collapse of the high-rise buildings under seismic forces. Shear wall has high in-plane
stiffness and strength which can be used to simultaneously resist large horizontal loads and support
gravity loads [9]. Additionally, shear walls inhibit inelastic shear modes of deformations. Thus,
shear wall as lateral loads resisting system is efficient for giving optimum means of providing
stiffness, strengths, and ductility. In such a system, structural walls execute tremendous stiffness at
the lower levels of the building, while moment frames typically restrain considerable deformations
and provide significant energy dissipation under inelastic deformations at the upper levels [12].
Generally, it is imperative to select a structure that has favorable features and appropriate
geometrical configurations in order to withstand seismic effect efficiently. American Society of
Civil Engineering, ASCE 7-5 [1], Uniform Building Code, UBC [10], Eurocode [6] and several
other code provisions classified the structures in terms of configuration viewpoint into tow groups;
1) regular, and 2) irregular. The regular structures are the structures that have no significant physical
discontinuities in their plans or vertical configuration or in their lateral-force-resisting system.
Conversely, the irregular structures are those that have significant physical discontinuities in
configuration or their lateral force-resisting-system. There are many sources of structural
irregularities; drastic changes in geometry, interruption of load paths, discontinuities in strength and
stiffness, unusual properties of members and reentrant corners. Full description of the majority of
irregular features of the structures is explained in [1], [2], [10], and [12].
Vertical discontinuity of shear wall is a particular case of vertical irregularity. Most code
provisions [1], [6], and [10] require for a structure to be regular, all vertical loading resisting
elements must continue uninterrupted from foundation level to the top roof of building. Also, mass
and stiffness must either remain constant with height or reduce only gradually without abrupt
changes. Design provisions for irregular buildings are understandably cautious and generally
include conservative and relatively complicated design procedures which tend to discourage the use
of such configurations. Unfortunately, choice of building configuration is seldom the decision of the
structure engineer who must consider seismic response, and irregular configurations will often be
required to fulfill architecture necessities or economical requirements [11]. An example of shear
wall discontinuity is as in a combined multistory office/home building. Office spaces are planned to
be in the lower floors while the dwelling apartments are planned to be in the higher floors. In higher
floors, the architectural plans require cantilever terraces wherein the peripheral shear wall may be a
problem to construct the terraces. In this case, the shear wall in the higher part has to be fully or
partly terminated and replaced with columns.
Although extensive works have been carried out on the significances of the irregularities on
the behavior of high-rise structures, there is still a lack of studies on the effect of vertical wall
discontinuity on the behavior of high-rise building under seismic actions.
The objective of this study is to investigate analytically through FE analysis the effect on
response to seismic effect the vertical discontinuity of shear wall in reinforced concrete high-rise
building. To achieve the objective, a set of three-dimensional models of 31 story reinforced
concrete frame-wall building were investigated under seismic action. A control model that have
shear walls continues from the foundation level to the top roof and four other cases with vertical
discontinuities were separately examined under seismic action. The five modeled cases including
the control model have the same characteristics and configuration with only variation of the in-plan
shear wall discontinuity. Vertical discontinuities associated with peripheral shear walls, portion of
core wall, and the entire core wall termination at intermediate level of the building height were

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separately examined under seismic action. The description of the idealized building and the cases of
shear wall discontinuity are demonstrated in details in the next sections.

BUILDING DESCRIPTION
A case study of reinforced concrete high-rise building with 30 stories + basement was selected in
order to examine shear wall discontinuity under dynamic action. The control model of the building
consists of a central core wall structure and columns and peripheral shear walls in orthogonal
directions. Core, frames, and shear walls are connected in each floor level by beams to form a
frame-wall system. The building geometric dimensions are 24.00 m by 43.00 m in plan. The typical
building geometry plan layout is shown in Figure 1. Height of typical floor and roof floor is 3.5 m
and basement floor height is 4.50 m. The building is intentionally kept symmetric in both
orthogonal directions in plan to avoid torsional response under pure lateral forces. Further, the
columns are proportioned to be squares in shape to keep the discussion focused only on shear wall
discontinuity, while disregarding other issues like orientation of columns.
The characteristics of structural members of the building in the different story level were estimated
from a preliminary design concept. The preliminary design of members (slabs, beams, columns, and
shear walls) was based on employing the vertical loads only for estimating the member sizes. A
higher margin of safety was considered in the preliminary design in order to account for the
additional anticipated seismic induced forces. The geometric characteristics of concrete elements
that shown in Figure 1, are listed in Table 1.

Fig. 1 Building Plan Layout

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Table 1 Element Concrete Dimensions

Element Level Dimensions (mm)

th
Base-to-10 Floor b= 900 t = 900
External Columns th th
11 Floor-to-20 Floor b= 800 t = 800
C1
th
21 Floor-to-Top Roof b= 600 t = 600
th
Base-to-10 Floor b= 1100 t = 1100
Interior Columns th th
11 Floor-to-20 Floor b= 900 t = 9000
C2
th
21 Floor-to-Top Roof b= 700 t = 700
Interior Beams B-1 All Floors b =300 h =800
External Beams B-2 All Floors b =300 h =600
th
Base-to-10 Floor Thickness t =500 mm
th th
Walls (WX, WY) 11 Floor-to-20 Floor Thickness t =400 mm
th
21 Floor-to-Top Roof Thickness t =350 mm
Core Base-to-Top Roof Thickness t =500 mm
Slabs All Floors Thickness t =180 mm
Slabs Roof Thickness t =200 mm

Material Properties
The concrete and reinforcement material properties adopted for the seismic design are selected so
that they could typically be found in tall building practice. For columns and walls, the specified
concrete compressive strength f' c was 60 MPa with modulus of elasticity Ec = 35,000 MPa, while
for floor slabs and beams f' c was selected to be 40 MPa with modulus of elasticity Ec = 30,000 MPa.
The expected yield strength adopted for reinforcing steel is fy =500 MPa and the young's modulus
for steel Es =200,000 MPa. The concrete self weight was assumed 25 kN /m3. The poisson's ration
was taken 0.20.

MODELING
The Extended Three-Dimensional Analysis of Building Systems software, ETABS [4] was
employed to perform the analysis of the building previously described. The columns and floor
beams were idealized using beam elements. Shear walls, core, and floor and roof slabs were
idealized with four-node quadrilateral shell elements with six degrees of freedom per node. The in-
plan connection between beams, columns, core, and shear walls was assumed to be fully rigid.

Floor and roof diaphragm which is responsible for transferring lateral forces through collectors to
the lateral load resisting system (walls and columns) was idealized as semi-rigid. The semi-rigid
diaphragm model is considered more accurate than rigid diaphragm, particularly for less stiff floors,
irregular configurations. Also, a semi-rigid diaphragm model can lead to more economical designs
for the floor diaphragm, and possibly the walls.
Connections between vertical load carrying members (columns, and walls) and the
foundation are assumed to be fixed. The schematic three-dimensional isometric view, side view,
and elevation view of the control model case of the analyzed model are illustrated in Figure 2.

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a) Isometric View b) Side View c) Elevation View

Fig. 2- Three-D Model View of the Building

Modification of Member Stiffness
According to ASCE [1] and UBC [10], the stiffness properties of reinforced concrete and masonry
elements shall consider the effects of cracked sections. The typical stiffness modification factors for
cracked section of different elements considered in the modeling cases are listed in Table 2.
Table 2 Stiffness Modification Factors

Member Stiffness Modifier

Columns 0.70 E c I g
Walls 0.70 E c I g
Slabs 0.25 E c I g
Beams 0.35 E c I g
Ec, modulus of elasticity for concrete; Ig , moment of inertia for the gross-sectional area of the member.

LOADING
All cases of concern for the building with different shear wall discontinuity, as will be illustrated in
the next sections, were evaluated under specific loading conditions. The analyses were conducted
assuming an initial unloaded condition with a zero response state due to the dead load. Description
of the different applied loads is presented next.

Gravity Loads
v Dead Loads
Self weight: The self weight was calculated automatically by the program by multiplying the
specific weight and the volume of each member.
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Floor cover: was assumed to be 2.00 kN/m2 for all floors

Partitioning: for interior beams was assumed 7.50 kN/m and for exterior beams 12.5 kN/m
v Live Loads
The live load was assumed 2.00 kN/m2 for all floors.
Earthquake load
Two methods were utilized for analyzing the building under seismic loads; (a) Equivalent
Static Analysis (ESA) approach, and (b) Dynamic Response Spectrum Analysis (RSA) method.
v Equivalent Static Analysis (ESA)
All design against seismic loads must consider the dynamic nature of the load. However, for
simple regular structures, analysis by Equivalent Static Analysis (ESA) methods is often sufficient.
It is permitted in most codes of practice [1], [6], and [10], for regular, low-to medium-rise buildings.
However, for tall buildings over 240 feet (73 152 mm) in height, where second and higher modes
can be important, or buildings with torsional effects, more complex methods are required to be used
in these circumstances [10].
Where the design base shear based on RSA method is less than 90 % of the calculated base
shear from ESA method, both ASCE [1] and UBC [10] require the design base shear, not the drifts,
of RSA to be scaled up to reach 90 % of the base shear of the ESA method. Thus, the ESA method
was used only for calculating the base shear force due to seismic loading. In the case study
presented in this paper, the scale factor of base shear of RSA method was 100 % of that of ESA
method.
For ESA method, seismic parameters employed for determining the seismic response on the
building was determined in accordance with UBC [10] design provisions for earthquake resistance
of structures. The UBC seismic parameters for the elastic response spectrum analysis are shown in
Table 3.
Table 3 UBC Seismic Parameters for Equivalent Static Analysis method

Seismic Design Parameters Seismic Design Values

Seismic zone 2A
Seismic zone factor Z Z = 0.15
Soil Profile Type SD (Stiff Soil Profile)
Seismic Importance Factor (I) Essential facility I = 1.00
Response Modification Factor R R = 5.5
acceleration-based seismic coefficient Ca Ca = 0.22
velocity -based seismic coefficient Cv Cv = 0.32

v Response Spectrum Analysis Method

Response Spectrum Analysis Method (RSA) is an elastic dynamic analysis of a structure utilizing
the peak dynamic response of all modes having a significant contribution to total structural
response. RSA method gives more accurate results than ESA approach [5]. There are computational
advantages in using the response spectrum method of seismic analysis for predicting induced
seismic demands in structural systems. The method involves the calculations of only the maximum
values of the displacements and member forces in each mode using smooth design spectra that are
the average of several earthquake motions. Consequently, the use of dynamic analysis will produce
structural designs that are more earthquake resistant than structures designed using static loads.
The spectrum function was selected as per UBC [10] with Ca = 0.22 and Cv = 0.32. The typical
spectral function is illustrated graphically in Figure 3. The damping ratio was taken 5 %. It is
important that the elastic response spectrum developed in this analysis was adjusted in the program
by the importance factor I and by the response modification coefficient R.
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0.70

Spectral Acceleration (m/sec )

2
0.60

0.50

0.40

0.30

0.20

0.10

0.00
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
T (sec)

Figure 3 UBC Typical Response Spectra Curve for the Model

P-∆ Effects
In the analysis the possible influence of second order effect P-∆ on the values of the action
effects shall be considered. This option is particularly useful for considering the effects of gravity
loads upon the lateral stiffness of building. The resulting member forces and moments and the story
drifts introduced by P-∆ effects shall be considered in the evaluation of overall structural stability
and shall be evaluated using forces producing the displacements [10].

Modal Analysis and Modal Combination

Ritz victors analysis was employed for modal analysis since the program ETABS [4]
recommends this method because dynamic analysis based on load-dependent Ritz vectors yield
more accurate results than the use of Eigenvectors.
As remarked by the ASCE [1] and UBC [10] the peak member forces, displacements, story
forces, story shears and base reactions for each mode shall be combined by recognized methods.
The Complete Quadratic Combination method (CQC) was employed. The CQC method shall be
used for each of the modal values or where closely spaced modes that have significant cross-
correlation of translational and torsional response. For directional combination, however, the Square
Root of the Sum of the Squares method (SRSS) was employed.
APPROACH AND ANALYTICAL MODELING
The effect of vertical discontinuity of shear walls in frame-wall system was evaluated
through finite element analyses of a series of idealized building with different forms of shear wall
discontinuity. All cases have the same configuration as described above. Shear walls at different
locations have been terminated either at mid-height or from the base of the building. The
description of the study cases are listed as follows and illustrated in Figure 4.

v CASE-1: Control model -all shear walls and core provided from the base to the top roof.
v CASE-2: Peripheral walls Wx and Wy were terminated at mid-height.
v CASE-3: Peripheral walls Wx and Wy were terminated from the base to the top roof.
v CASE-4: Center of the core wall (dashed) is terminated at mid-height.
v CASE-5: Central core is entirely terminated at mid-height.

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CASE-1 Control Model CASE-2 CASE-3

CASE-4 CASE-5
Figure 4 Study Cases
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, the results and the discussion of the case studies are presented. The comparison of
dynamic parameters for the five model cases are presented in tables and figures. Time periods,
lateral story displacements, story drifts, and story shears and moments for the considered cases will
be presented and discussed in this section.

Time Periods
The time periods for the modal response for all cases are listed in Table 4. It is obvious that for
Case-1, Case-2 the time periods are identical, which indicates that there will be almost no effect on
the behavior of building when terminating the peripheral walls at mid-height. For Case3, and Cas4-
the time periods are slight larger than for the control model. While for Case-3 wherein the
peripheral shear walls do not exist, the time period is larger than those for the other cases. This
indicates that building without peripheral shear walls could possibly be more flexible and
vulnerable to large deformations and lateral forces under seismic actions.

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Table 4 Time Periods for Modal Response

MODAL CASE-1 CASE-2 CASE-3 CASE-4 CASE-5

1 3.60 3.61 4.16 3.71 3.75
2 3.52 3.53 4.12 3.56 3.60
3 2.81 2.86 3.99 2.95 2.97
4 0.92 1.02 1.33 1.07 1.15
5 0.85 0.91 1.22 0.92 1.11
6 0.65 0.88 0.94 0.47 0.50
7 0.42 0.49 0.62 0.39 0.48
8 0.35 0.36 0.39 0.28 0.35
9 0.25 0.32 0.39 0.25 0.29
10 0.19 0.21 0.25 0.18 0.27
11 0.13 0.16 0.19 0.15 0.15
12 0.10 0.11 0.14 0.10 0.13

Lateral Story Displacements

It is impractical to design the structure to withstand a major earthquake elastically, and the normal
approach is to provide it with sufficient strength and ductility to withstand such an event by
responding inelastically [3]. The appropriate design effort will need to concentrate on the control
and limitation of displacements that could occur during the anticipated earthquake, and to ensure
adequate strengths in all components of the structure to resist the earthquake–induced forces while
remaining elastic [12]. Thus, the inelastic displacements corresponding to the design-level response
have to be evaluated. According to UBC [10], the maximum inelastic response displacement is
defined as: ΔM = 0.7RΔS. Where, R is the response modification factor and ΔS is the elastic
displacements.
None of the code provisions, however, specifies the limitation of such displacements. Some
text book [2] suggest a wide range for such displacements as of 0.1-to-o.5 m for a 33-story building,
100 m high building. The lateral displacement is not used for drift control or stability considerations
and it may give a false impression of the effects in critical stories. However, it is of importance
when considering seismic separation requirements and it may predict the overall behavior of the
structure. Both ASCE [1] and UBC [10] require that adjacent building be isolated from each other
by a prescribed distance to minimize the contact between adjacent structures.
If adjacent buildings do not have adequate separation, they may "pound" against each other
during an earthquake. Pounding can have significant adverse effects, especially when the floors are
not co-planner. Pounding of buildings with non-co-planner floors can result in the floors of one
building impacting the columns of another building at mid-height. This impact induces large shear
forces and bending moments into the impacted columns, potentially causing the columns to fail and
the structure to collapse [7].
On the other hand, when structures have co-planner floors, pounding may be advantageous in
some respects. If floors are co-planner, the tow adjacent buildings will have a more difficult time
vibrating with the earthquake. Since pounding is a highly nonlinear response, pounding will tend to
damp out vibrations and reduce the responses of the two buildings. However, pounding is likely to
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increase floor accelerations and is likely to result in significant localized damage between the two
buildings [7].
Figure 5 illustrates the maximum lateral inelastic story displacements in both X and Y
directions for the considered cases. It can be observed from Figure 5 that the maximum lateral
displacements for all cases lie within the figure given by Bryan et al [2] (0.1 -to- 0.5 m for a 33-
story building). The obtained maximum lateral displacement was about 0.5 m for Case-3 in which
the peripheral walls do not exist.
For Case-4 and Case-5 the lateral displacements are comparable to those of control model
(Case-1) except at the higher floor levels (floor 23-to-the top roof), the lateral displacements are
slight larger with a difference of around 10 % for Case-4 and 12 % for Case-5 at the top roof
particularly in the slender direction Y. The trend is similar for all cases except for Case-3, wherein
the peripheral walls do not exist. It can be seen from the graph that the lateral displacements for
Case-3 are larger by 139 % at the basement floor reducing to 26 % at the top roof of building
compared to those of the control model (Case-1). This large deviation of lateral displacements of
Case-3 indicates the significance of the high stiffness of the peripheral shear walls in sharing the
lateral forces and minimizing the story displacements in the lower stories of high-rise buildings.
It can be concluded from the of the given lateral displacements for all cases of concern shown
in Figure 5, that terminating the peripheral shear walls at mid-height in case of existing the core
wall or terminating part or the entire the core wall at mid-height of building would not affect the
overall behavior of the structure. This agreed with the experimental study results by MOHEL et al
[11]. He found out that the top displacements of the structure with a full height wall (control model
in our study) were nearly identical to those of the structure with shear wall terminated at-mid-
height. Thus, he concluded that the use of partial height walls may be an acceptable frame-wall
structural configuration. On the other hand, the existence of the peripheral shear walls up to a
certain level of building is of a prime importance particularly for higher buildings.

31 31

26 26

21
21
STORY NUMBER

STORY NUMBER

16
16

11
11

CASE-1 CASE-2
6 CASE-1 CASE-2
CASE-3 CASE-4
6 CASE-3 CASE-4
CASE-5
CASE-5
1
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
1
DISPLACEMENTS (mm) 0 100 200 300 400 500 600

LATERAL STORY DIPLACEMENTS (X) DISPLACEMENTS (mm)

LATERAL STORY DIPLACEMENTS (Y)

Fig. 5. Lateral Story Displacements (X and Y)

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Inter-Story Drifts
The inter story drift is defined as the difference in lateral deflection between tow adjacent stories.
The UBC [10] and ASCE 7-5 [1] require the structure under seismic loads to be designed based on
the effect of both structure and non-structural elements. Lateral deflection and consequently inter-
story drift have three primary effects on the structure; a) the movement can affect the main
structural elements, b) the movement can affect non-structural elements, and c) the movement can
affect the adjacent structures[7], and [9]. Therefore, the story drift is considered one of the practical
engineering quantity and indicator of structural performance.
The inter-story drift is determined from the maximum inelastic displacement, ΔM. UBC [10]
requires that the design inter-story drift shall not exceed 0.02 h, where h is the story height for two
consecutive floors. The inter-storey drifts from the Modal Response Spectrum Analysis method for
all cases are shown in Figure 20. It can be observed that the story drifts for all cases were found to
be within the acceptable limits specified by the UBC (0.02 *3.5 *1000= 70 mm).
However, the trends of inter-story drifts for all cases are varying compared to those of the
control model. Drifts for Case-2 are identical to those of the control model case (Case-1) up to the
floor level 15 wherein the peripheral shear walls were terminated, while an abrupt increase in story
drifts occurred at the level of the peripheral shear wall termination. Story drifts of Case-3
particularly in slender direction Y are higher from the bottom up to the middle of the building
height. This is attributed to the absence of peripheral shear walls because the deformations of walls
are primarily flexural and the high stiffness of shear walls minimizes story drifts in the lower stories
of high-rise buildings. Accordingly, the existing of the peripheral shear walls along with the core is
significant in the overall performance of high-rise building under seismic action.
For Case-4 and Case-5, wherein part of central core or the entire core terminated at mid-
height of the building, the deviation of story drifts at core termination level up to the top floor is
clear. Increasing for the two cases is almost constant from the core termination level up to the top
floor level. Although the values of story drifts for all cases are within the allowable story drift level,
the abrupt changes in story drift profiles may alter the behavior of local components of the
supporting elements at the position of interruption. Also, care has to be given to the anticipated
stress concentration of shear walls or core at level of discontinuities. Columns, beams, or slabs at
and above level of shear wall discontinuous shall be adequate to transmit the forces for which the
discontinuous elements were required to be designed.

31 31

26 26
STORY NUMBER
STORY NUMBER

21 21 CASE-1
CASE-1
CASE-2 CASE-2
CASE-3 CASE-3
CASE-4 CASE-4
16 16
CASE-5 CASE-5

11 11

6 6

1 1
0 4 8 12 16 20 0 5 10 15 20 25

STORY DRIFT-X- (mm) STORY DRIFT-Y- (mm)

Figure 6 Maximum Story Drifts

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Story Shears and Moments

During an earthquake, large lateral forced can be imposed on the structure and hence large lateral
deformations. The seismic storey forces are determined on the basis of a base shear. It is the total
design lateral force acting at the bottom of a structure. Based on an estimate of the fundamental
natural period of the structure, formulas are specified for the base shear. Empirical formulae used to
calculate the time period of the structure recommended by all codes of practices. It is mainly based
on the height of the structure and the structural systems in all codes of practices. As mentioned
previously, the UBC code [10] allows the base shear of RSA method to be scaled up to 90 % of the
base shear of ESA, and in this study, the base shear of RSA method was scaled up by 100% of the
ESA method. Since the base shear of ESA method is based on fixed parameters listed on Table 1,
and the weight and height of the building are the same for all models, therefore the distribution of
the predicted story shears and accordingly the overturning moments would be very similar for all
cases. However, the distribution of these shear forces and moments between the members of the
lateral load resisting system will be different. On other words, the applied forces and moments on
slabs, beams and columns in case of terminating shear walls from mid-height (Case-2, Case-3,
Case4, and Case5) may be different than in those of Case-1. Further study needed to evaluate these
effects.
Figures 7 and 8 illustrate the story shears and moments due to the horizontal response spectrum in X
and Y directions. It can be seen that the resulted story shears and moments and their trends for all
cases are very similar. Only moment for case -3 is slight bigger than for Case-1 with a difference of
about 7 %. This may be attributed to the flexibility of the building in this case.
31
31
CASE-1 CASE-1
CASE-2
CASE-2
CASE-3
26 26 CASE-3
CASE-4
CASE-4

21 21
STORY NUMBER

STORY NUMBER

16 16

11 11

6 6

1
1
0 3,000 6,000 9,000 12,000 15,000
0 3,000 6,000 9,000 12,000 15,000
Vy (kN.m)
Vx (kN.m)
STORY SHEAR (Vy)
STORY SHEAR (Vx)

Figure 7 Story Shears

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 EFFECT OF SHEAR WALL VERTICAL DISCONTINUITY ON THE BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS UNDER SEISMIC EFFECTS

31 31
CASE-1
CASE-1
CASE-2
CASE-2
CASE-3
26 26 CASE-3
CASE-4
CASE-4

21 21
STORY NUMBER

STORY NUMBER
16 16

11 11

6 6

1 1
0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000 0 200,000 400,000 600,000 800,000
My (kN.m) Mx (kN.m)
STORY (My) STORY MOMENT (Mx)

Figure 8 Story Moments

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The paper has presented an analytical study on the effects of shear wall discontinuity for high-rise
building under seismic action. Five models with different shear wall discontinuity configuration
have been investigated. The dynamic demands (time periods, lateral story displacements, story drift,
and story shear and moment) were evaluated. The following conclusions can be drawn from the
analytical results:

• Time periods for the analyzed models with either shear walls continues or discontinuous
from mid-height of the building are almost the same except for shear wall termination from
the base to the top roof, it was larger which indicates of more flexible structure behavior.
• From the obtained lateral displacements for all cases, terminating the peripheral shear walls
at mid-height in case of existing the core wall or terminating part or the entire the core wall
at mid-height of building would not affect the overall behavior of the building
• The story drifts for all cases were found to be within the permitted value given by UBC
code. This again maintain the thought that terminating the shear walls at mid-height in
would not affect the overall behavior of the building
• Abrupt changes in story drift profiles may alter the behavior of local components of the
supporting elements at the position of interruption. Therefore, Columns, beams, or slabs at
and above level of shear wall discontinuous shall be adequate to transmit the forces for
which the discontinuous elements were required to be designed. Also, care has to be given to
the anticipated stress concentration of shear walls or core at level of discontinuities. There
was no noticeable changes in story shears and story moments for the building with continues
or discontinuous from mid-height of the building.

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 EFFECT OF SHEAR WALL VERTICAL DISCONTINUITY ON THE BEHAVIOR OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS UNDER SEISMIC EFFECTS

Although the obtained values of dynamic demands (time periods, lateral story displacements, story
drifts, and story shears and moments) for all cases lied within the acceptable demand values and
indicated there is no effect of shear wall discontinuities on the global behavior of the building, the
local components may be influenced particularly at the position of discontinuities. Therefore, it is
recommended to evaluate the anticipated stress concentration of shear walls or core at level of
discontinuities and the internal forces for the participating members on lateral load-resisting system
in a separate study.
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[9] Heip Pham Tuan, (2008). Seismic Design Considerations for Tall Buildings, A Dissertation
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