©COMPUTERS AND STRUCTURES, INC.

, BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 2001

SHEAR WALL DESIGN
Technical Note
Interactive Shear Wall Design

General
Interactive shear wall design and review is a powerful mode that allows quick,
on-screen review of design results for a specific pier or spandrel. This mode
allows easy modification to design parameters (overwrites) and immediate
review of the new results.

Note that a design must have been run for the interactive design mode to be
available. To run a design, click the Design menu > Shear Wall Design >
Start Design/Check of Structure command.

To enter the interactive design and review mode, right click on a wall pier or
spandrel while the design results are displayed. If design results are not cur-
rently displayed (and the design has been run), click the Design menu >
Shear Wall Design > Interactive Wall Design command and then right
click a pier or spandrel to enter the interactive design and review mode for
that pier or spandrel.

Note that if both a pier and a spandrel label are assigned to the right-clicked
object, a pop-up box offers the choice to enter the interactive design and re-
view mode for the pier or for the spandrel.

The following sections describe the interactive pier design and review and the
interactive spandrel design and review.

Interactive Pier Design and Review

When you right click on a pier for interactive design, the Pier Design form will
display. This form provides general information at the top of the box that
identifies and locates the pier. Additionally, the form displays output informa-
tion for flexural design, shear design and the boundary element check. The
Technical Notes provide detailed code-specific descriptions of the types of
Output information accessible for interactive design using this form for each

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type of design. Access the Technical Notes using the Help menu > Docu-
mentation command.

The Pier Design form includes the Combos, Overwrites, Section Top and
Section Bot buttons. Note that the Section Top and Section Bot buttons do
not appear on the Simplified Section form.

Combos Button
Click the Combos button to access and allow temporary revisions to the de-
sign load combinations considered for the pier. This may be useful, for exam-
ple, if you want to see the results for one particular load combination. You can
temporarily change the considered design load combinations to be only the
ones you are interested in and review the results.

The changes made here to the considered design load combinations are tem-
porary. They are not saved when you exit the Pier Design form, whether you
click OK or Cancel to exit it.

Overwrites Button
Click the Overwrites button to access and allow revisions to the pier over-
writes and enable immediate review of the revised design results. If some
overwrites are modified in this mode and the OK buttons in both the Pier De-
sign Overwrites form and the Pier Design form are clicked, the changes made
to the overwrites are permanently saved.

Exiting the Pier Design Overwrites form by clicking the OK button temporarily
saves changes. Subsequently exiting the Pier Design form by clicking the
Cancel button does not save the changes made to the pier overwrites.

To permanently save changes to the overwrites, click the OK button to exit

the Pier Design Overwrites, and then click the OK button to exit the Pier De-
sign form.

Section Top and Section Bot Buttons

These buttons are only visible when designing or checking a pier with a Sec-
tion Designer section assigned to it. Clicking these buttons opens Section De-
signer in a locked (read-only) mode, where you can view the Section Designer
section assigned to the pier. Clicking the Section Top button allows you to
view the section assigned to the top of the pier. Similarly, clicking the Sec-

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Shear Wall Design Interactive Shear Wall Design

tion Bot button allows you to view the section assigned to the bottom of the
pier.

While in Section Designer, you can review the geometry of the section and
the size and location of the rebar. However, you cannot make any changes to
the section. You can also review the section properties, interaction surface
and moment curvature curve.

Important note: The interaction surface and the moment curvature curve
are displayed for the section as it is defined in Section Designer. Thus, when
you are designing a pier that is assigned a Section Designer section, the in-
teraction surface and moment curvature curve displayed are for the reinforc-
ing (ratio) drawn in Section Designer, not the required reinforcing ratio re-
ported in the design output.

When you have finished reviewing the section in Section Designer, close Sec-
tion Designer to return to the Pier Design form in the main program.

Interactive Spandrel Design and Review

Note that a design must have been run for the interactive design mode to be
available. To run a design, click the Design menu > Shear Wall Design >
Start Design/Check of Structure command.

Right click on a spandrel to display the Spandrel Design form for interactive
design. General information identifying and locating the spandrel is displayed
at the top of this form. Output information for both flexural and shear design
is also displayed. See the Technical Notes for a description of the types of
Output information that is displayed from this form for interactive spandrel
design. Access the Technical Notes using the Help menu > Documentation
command.

The Combos button and the Overwrites button are also displayed and are
described in the next subsections.

Combos Button
Clicking the Combos button accesses and allows temporary revisions to the
design load combinations considered for the spandrel. This may be useful, for
example, if you want to see the results for one particular load combination.

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You can temporarily change the considered design load combinations and
immediately review the results.

The changes made here to the considered design load combinations are tem-
porary. They are not saved when you exit the Spandrel Design form, whether
you click OK or Cancel to exit.

Overwrites Button
Clicking the Overwrites button accesses and allows revisions to the spandrel
overwrites and enables immediate review of the new design results. If you
modify some overwrites in this mode and exit both the Spandrel Design
Overwrites form and the Spandrel Design form by clicking their respective OK
buttons, the changes to the overwrites are permanently saved.

Exiting the Spandrel Design Overwrites form by clicking the OK button tem-
porarily saves changes. Subsequently exiting the Spandrel Design form by
clicking the Cancel button does not permanently save changes.

To permanently save the overwrites, click the OK button in the Spandrel De-
sign Overwrites form and then click the OK button in the Spandrel Design
form.

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