A Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis of Shear Walls by Different Shaped Openings

Many engineers find the way of improving the old building���s structural behavior in the remodeling project which is performed using artificial openings for merging two houses. The installation of new opening is necessary for remodeling project which have main plan as house merging. Current code include provisions for the design of symmetric and unsymmetric solid walls; however, it is necessary to provide openings in the walls for doors or windows. There are several researches for shear strength determination however, in order to apply this research results, analysis of stress distribution is mandatory. Therefore, in this study, we carried out analytical study for wall which include openings and connecting elements such as coupling beam. It may be used to evaluation of structural safety and determination of efficient retrofitting methods. Nonlinear analysis was conducted, using ABAQUS, a finite-element analysis program, to obtain data for determining the characteristics of the structural and to allow various parametric analyses for coupling beams according to shape of the openings, the C3D20R element was used, in which concrete element had 20 nodes quadratic brick reduced integration points and each node had 3 degrees of freedom. For the reinforcements, T3D3 element used which is a 3-node quadratic 3-D truss element and these elements embeded in the concrete elements. As a results of analysis, behavior and strength of wall are different according to the existence and size of connecting elements