Analysis of Pierced Shear Walls

The continuous connection method of analysis of coupled shear walls assumes that the discrete system of connections, formed by lintel beams or floor slabs, may be replaced by an equivalent continuous medium. By assuming that all cross-beams have a point of contraflexure at midspan, the behavior of the system may be expressed as a single second-order differential equation, enabling a general closed solution to the problem to be obtained. The writers have extended the technique to include shearing deformations of the walls. By comparing the theoretical values of both stresses and deflections with the results from a series of tests on model walls perforated with one or two bands of openings, it is shown that the influence of the shearing deformations in the walls is much less than that of the flexibility of the joints between the walls and connecting beams.