SOLID WALL SEGMENTS

In the StatiCAD-Yigma program, drawing walls as a single piece along the axis without splitting at room intersections, and when a door or window is drawn within a wall, the program divides the wall by doors and windows rather than at room intersections, is the correct approach in terms of code criteria.

EXPLANATION:

Tdy 2007 5.3.3. Calculation of Shear Stress

The calculation of shear stresses induced by the earthquake design load parallel to the horizontal joints of the walls shall be carried out as described in this section.

5.3.3.1 – The relative shear rigidity of the solid wall segments between door or window openings along each wall axis of a masonry building shall be calculated from the expression kA/h.

Here A is the horizontal cross-sectional area of the solid wall segment and h is the smallest of the heights of the openings on both sides of the solid wall segment. If the cross-section of the wall is rectangular, k = 1.0; if end elements exist at the ends of the wall, or if there is a tooth or buttress wall perpendicular to the wall at its end, k = 1.2 shall be taken.

What can be understood from the sentence:

1- The solid wall segment definition related to shear calculation is the wall segment remaining between two doors, two windows, or one door and one window. In other words, walls must not be divided at room intersections.

The wall definition in the code is illustrated in the figures below and in studies found in the literature.

Again, in the sample solutions of the Ministry's urban transformation training, in Zekai Celep's books, and in the solutions published by the Ministry, walls have been taken as whole units between doors and windows.

Since there is no axis and node dependency between floors in our program, walls can be created and considered as defined by the code. Even if walls are drawn in segments, they can be merged so that they form a single piece between doors and windows (by applying the Merge Wall command).

Figure: Masonry Building Lecture Notes from the Urban Transformation Training Published by the Ministry

The figure above also shows how the walls should be segmented during analysis.

Note: The explanations given are intended to enable modelling in the manner described by the code and the literature. The program analyses the building as it is modelled. If the building is not modelled as described in the paragraphs above and the analysis is run by splitting at room corners, the program will successfully complete the calculation according to the requirements of the new assumption made. In other words, the program can perform the calculation in both ways.