Slide 3 of 67
Notes:
Where Should Shear Walls Be Located?
- Shear walls should create a box. How much do you need?
- Shear walls should be located on each level of the structure including the crawl space.
- Shear walls should create a box structure
- Note shear walls in each corner and in-between corners, with stucco in between
- To be effective, shear walls should be equal length and placed symmetrically on all four exterior walls of the building.
- Note how shear walls are evenly distributed
- As long as the dimensions of the box are 3:1, you only need to worry about the outside walls
- Egs.: a 25-foot wide building with conventional diagonal sheathing will not require interior shear walls until its length exceeds 75 feet unless the strength or stiffness of the exterior shear walls are inadequate.
- Shear walls should be added to the building interior:
- when exterior walls cannot provide sufficient strength and stiffness or
- when the allowable span-width ratio for the floor or roof diaphragm is exceeded
