HIDDEN ZONES OF HIGH STRESS IN SEISMIC RESPONSE OF STRUCTURAL WALLS

The regions of reinforced concrete shear walls directly below a stack of openings experience a very significant increase in shear stress when subjected to strong ground motion. This fact which is ignored by the current seismic design codes as well as many structural designers can prove responsible for many failures of a class of structural wall systems i f subjected to sever ground motion. This paper presents a detailed study of this problem and provides some tentative design and detailing recommendations