Seismic Design of High-Rise Concrete Walls: Reverse Shear due to Diaphragms below Flexural Hinge

High-rise concrete shear walls are often supported near or below grade by stiff floor diaphragms connected to perimeter foundation walls. When a large portion of the overturning moment in the wall is transferred to the foundation walls by force couples in two or more stiff floor diaphragms, the maximum bending moment (flexural plastic hinge) occurs above the diaphragms and the shear force reverses below the flexural hinge. Depending on the stiffness of floor diaphragms, and on the shear rigidity and flexural rigidity of the high-rise concrete walls, the reverse shear force below the flexural hinge may be much larger than the base shear above the flexural hinge. Nonlinear dynamic analyses indicate the maximum reverse shear force is proportional to the bending moment capacity of the wall and inversely proportional to the accompanying base shear force. An upper-bound estimate of bending moment capacity of the high-rise wall combined with an assumed zero base shear force can be used in a simple nonlinear static analysis to estimate the maximum shear force below the flexural plastic hinge. A nonlinear shear model can be used to determine whether diagonal cracking of the wall and yielding of horizontal wall reinforcement will reduce the reverse shear force without causing a shear failure. Increasing the quantity of horizontal reinforcement in the wall above a certain limit may not prevent a shear failure and thus a different design solution will need to be found. An upper-bound estimate of floor diaphragm stiffness should be used in order to not underestimate the shear strain demand on high-rise walls.