Implementation of a New Macroscopic Shear Wall Element

A new macroscopic four node reinforced concrete shear wall element is presented. The element is capable of considering the effect of wall opening without any divisions in the element. Accordingly, the opening may be located arbitrary inside the element. Furthermore, three degrees of freedom are suggested here at each node, totally compatible with the surrounding frame elements. The element is considered only for in-plane stiffness of the wall. Therefore, the surrounding frame elements are assumed to be assembled separately which provides a suitable modeling condition. The element consists of vertical springs, horizontal springs and a shear membrane shell. No rigid element is used in the assembly for imposing the bending action; however, the compatibility is achieved using the definition of shape functions. The element is developed and evaluated in linear applications. The results indicate that some major defects of other macroscopic shear wall elements are removed by the proposed element.