CHAPTER - 3

BY WIRA TJONG, S.E

Alemayehu
Darge
Concrete Walls
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INTRODUCTION
FUNCTIONS, TYPES AND LOADS ON WALLS

All buildings contain walls the function of which is

to carry loads, enclose and divide space, exclude
weather and retain heat. Walls may classified into the
following types:

1. Internal non-load bearing walls of block work

or light movable partitions that divide space
only
2. Load bearing walls designed to carry vertical
building loads and horizontal lateral loads and
provide stability of structure
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INTRODUCTION

 A structural wall is a wall proportioned to resist

combinations of shears, moments, and axial forces.
 A wall shall have a horizontal length of at least four
times its thickness. Otherwise it shall be treated as
column

Elevation Plan
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INTRODUCTION

Loads are applied to walls in the following ways:

1. vertical loads from roof and floor slabs or beams

supported by the wall

2. Horizontal/lateral in-plane loads from wind and

earth quake when the wall is used to provide
lateral stability in a building as a shear wall

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INTRODUCTION

A reinforced wall shall be considered as short or slender and

as either braced or unbraced as follows:
Short or Slender Walls:
 A wall may be considered short when the ratio of its
effective height to its thickness does not exceed 7.
• It shall otherwise be considered slender. ;
Braced or Unbraced Walls:
 A wall may be considered as braced if, at right angles to
the plane of the wall, lateral stability to the structure as a
whole is provided by walls or other suitable ,bracing
designed to resist all lateral forces in that direction.
• It shall otherwise be considered as unbraced.

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Design of Reinforced Concrete Wails for
Flexure and Axial Loads

 Walls subject to combined flexure and axial load

shall be designed as in columns.
 The length of the wall to be considered effective
for each concentrated load shall not exceed the
center-to-center distance between loads, nor
shall it exceed the width of the bearing plus four
times the wall thickness.
 The thickness of load bearing walls shall not be
less than 1/25 of the unsupported height or width,
whichever is shorter, nor less than 150 mm.

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Design of Reinforced Concrete Wails for
Flexure and Axial Loads
 The effective height of reinforced concrete walls in non-
sway mode is given by:

He=
Where: H= is the Story height of the wall.
=is the coefficient which is determined
from the following equation.

Where: b is the width of the wall measured center-to-center of the bracing walls, or
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width measured from the center of a bracing wall to the free edge.
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DETAILING OF REINFORCEMENTS

Vertical Reinforcement
i. The area of vertical reinforcement shall not be less
than 0.004Ac, nor more than 0.04Ac. The upper
limit shall be observed even where bars overlap.
ii. For walls with a larger cross-section than required
by considerations of loading, a reduced effective
area not less than one-half the total area may be
used to determine minimum reinforcement and
design strength.
iii. Diameter of vertical bars shall not be less that 8mm.
iv. The spacing of vertical bars shall not exceed twice
the wall thickness nor 300mm.
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DETAILING OF REINFORCEMENTS

Horizontal Reinforcement
i. The area of horizontal reinforcement shall not
be less than one-half of that of the vertical
reinforcement.
ii. The spacing of horizontal bars shall not exceed
300mm. the diameter of horizontal bars shall
not be less than one quarter of that of vertical
bars.
iii. Horizontal reinforcement shall enclose vertical
reinforcement. The horizontal bars shall be tied
to the vertical bars so as to form a rigid mat.
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DETAILING OF REINFORCEMENTS

Transverse reinforcement
i. The mats at two faces of the wall shall be
connected to each other by at least 4
transverse S-ties per m2, when diameter of the
vertical reinforcement is 16mm or more.
ii. If the area of required reinforcement exceeds
0.02Ac, then ties as required for columns shall
be provided.

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Shear Design

 Design for horizontal shear forces in the plane of

the wall shall be in accordance with provisions of
for beams with the following modifications:

a. Effective depth ‘d’ shall be taken as 0.8b

b. Sections located closer to the base than a distance
b/2 or L/2, which ever is less shall be designed for
the shear at b/2 or L/2

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