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Basics of Earthquake Resistant Design
Lateral Load Resisting Systems
When designing a building that will be capable of withstanding an earthquake, engineers can
choose various structural components, the earthquake resistance of which is now well-
understood, and then combine them into what is known as a complete lateral load resisting
system. These structural components usually include:
shear walls
braced frames
moment resisting frames
diaphragms
horizontal trusses
Of course, a building always possesses floors and a roof. But the earthquake resistant
characteristics of these basic elements is highly variable. Not only that, the building's horizontal
elements can be supported by a wide variety of wall and frame types or wall-frame
combinations, the choice of which is usually dictated by considerations other than earthquake
resistance. For instance, some buildings such as a warehouse or a parking garage must have a
large open floor space--which means that roof and floors of such structures will not be provided
with as much vertical support from beneath as they might be otherwise.
The engineer-designer in charge of making a building earthquake resistant must therefore choose
a combination of structural elements which will most favorably balance the demands of
earthquake resistance, building cost, building use, and architectural design.
Diaphragms

(fig. 1)
Diaphragms are horizontal resistance elements, generally floors and roofs, that transfer the lateral
forces between the vertical resistance elements (shear walls or frames). Basically, a diaphragm
acts as a horizontal I-beam. That is, the diaphragm itself acts as the web of the beam and its
edges act as flanges. (See figure 1)
Shear Walls
Shear walls are vertical walls that are designed to receive lateral forces from diaphragms and
transmit them to the ground. The forces in these walls are predominantly shear forces in which
the fibers within the wall try to slide past one another.

(fig. 2)
When you build a house of cards, you design a shear wall structure, and you soon learn that
sufficient card "walls" must be placed at right angles to one another or the house will collapse. If
you were to connect your walls together with tape, it is easy to see that the strength of this house
of cards would significantly increase. This illustrates a very important point, in which the
earthquake resistance of any building is highly dependent upon the connections joining the
building's larger structural members, such as walls, beams, columns and floor-slabs.
Shear walls, in particular, must be strong in themselves and also strongly connected to each other
and to the horizontal diaphragms. In a simple building with shear walls at each end, ground
motion enters the building and creates inertial forces that move the floor diaphragms. This
movement is resisted by the shear walls and the forces are transmitted back down to the
foundation.
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Cumulative Overturning Design for Site-
Built and Prefabricated Shear Walls
By Bryan D. Wert, M.S., P.E., Simpson Strong-Tie
The following is an excerpt from an article published in the
October 2007 issue of Structural Engineer magazine. We've republished it here with Simpson
Strong-Tie's permission.
We all know that structures are subject to lateral forces. Weve seen the awesome power of
Mother Nature at work and learned valuable lessons from natural events, such as the Great San
Francisco Earthquake of 1906; the Northridge, California, earthquake in 1994; and the
destructive forces of wind during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In wood-frame construction,
building codes throughout the country either require structural engineers to calculate and design
for wind or seismic forces or require contractors to build by a prescriptive method of resisting
lateral forces.
Wood has become one of the most prolific building materials in the construction industry
because of its versatility, availability, load capacity and economical value. As such, a variety of
design methods have been developed to resist lateral loads on wood structures. Within the past
half century, the use of site-built, wood-framed shear walls has gin leaps and bounds as a means
of resisting lateral forces. A relatively new design method also has arrived in the past decade
prefabricated shear walls, built out of wood and/or steel.
Wood structures today are one to six stories tall and include some new design features, such as
higher floor-to-floor heights, taller doors and larger window openings, typically along the front
and rear exterior walls. Consequently, finding available wall space to meet the minimum load
demands and wall lengths prescribed by the code is far more challenging when using site-built
shear walls. The invention of the prefabricated shear wall was created out of the necessity to
provide narrow shear wall solutions. These walls are designed to meet the high load and extreme
aspect ratio demands. They also are being used in stacked configurations in multi-story
structures, introducing cumulative overturning into the designers calculations. Because of this,
designers need to revisit the general mechanics of shear wall design as it applies to both site-built
and prefabricated shear walls.
Fundamentals of shear wall design
When lateral (wind or seismic) forces engage the diaphragm of a structure, its easy to visualize
the force pushing horizontally on the top of the shear wall. Sheathing then transfers the shear
from the top of the wall to the bottom of the wall while holding the wall together to resist
racking. If the bottom plate of the wall is anchored to the foundation to resist sliding; the far end
of the wall will press down (compression force) and the near side of the wall will lift up (tension
force) this is overturning.
Racking: When wind blows against the side of the structure exerting a lateral force that causes it
to lean over (rack) to one side.
Sliding: When wind blows against the side of the structure exerting a lateral force, causing it to
slide off of its foundation.\
Overturning: When the structure is anchored in place to limit racking or sliding, the lateral force
of the wind causes the structure to rotate or overturn.
The members at each end of a shear wall (typically wood studs or posts) are designed so that the
capacity of these members will withstand the compression demand caused by overturning and
gravity forces. The International Building Code (IBC), Section 2305.3.7 states where the dead
load stabilizing momentis not sufficient to prevent uplift due to overturning moments on the
wall, an anchoring device shall be provided. Anchoring devices shall maintain a continuous load
path to the foundation. These components of the shear wall required to resist overturning are
fundamental to the walls design, and proper calculation of the demand forces are important in
single-story buildings and absolutely essential in multi-story structures where forces are
amplified and cumulative.
About the author
Bryan D. Wert, M.S., P.E., is a branch engineer for Simpson Strong-Tie. He works in McKinney,
Texas, and services the southeast region.
Learn more
To learn more about shear walls and cumulative overturning, download the full article or view
the article on Simpson Strong-Ties website.

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