COMPUTERS AND STRUCTURES, INC.

, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 2001

SHEAR WALL DESIGN

Technical Note

General Design Information

This Technical Note presents some basic information and concepts related to designing or checking shear walls using this program.

Design Codes
The design code is set using the Options menu > Preferences > Shear Wall Design command. You can choose to design for any one design code in any one design run. You cannot design some beams for one code and others for a different code in the same design run. You can however perform different design runs using different design codes without rerunning the analysis.

Units
For shear wall design in this program, any set of consistent units can be used for input. Also, the system of units being used can be changed at any time. Typically, design codes are based on one specific set of units. The shear wall design preferences allow the user to specify special units for concentrated and distributed areas of reinforcing. These units are then used for reinforcing in the model, regardless of the current model units displayed in the drop-down box on the status bar (or within a specific form). The special units specified for concentrated and distributed areas of reinforcing can only be changed in the shear wall design preferences. The choices available in the shear wall design preferences for the units associated with an area of concentrated reinforcing are in2, cm2, mm2, and current units. The choices available for the units associated with an area per unit length of distributed reinforcing are in2/ft, cm2/m. mm2/m, and current units. The current units option uses whatever units are currently displayed in the drop-down box on the status bar (or within a specific form). If the current length units are feet, this option means concentrated areas of reinforcing are in ft2 and distributed areas of reinforcing are in ft2/ft. Note that when using

Design Codes

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