Shear lag in shear/core walls

Abstract

Shear lag occurs not only in bridge decks and framed tubes, but also in shear/core walls. However, there have been relatively few studies on shear lag in wall structures. Moreover, most existing theories neglect shear lag in the webs and, although they are acceptable for bridge decks that normally have flanges wider than webs, they may not be applicable to shear/core walls whose webs can be much wider than flanges. To study the shear lag phenomenon in wall structures, a parametric study using finite-element analysis is carried out. Unlike previous studies that neglected shear lag in the webs, many layers of elements are used for both the webs and flanges so that shear lag in the webs can also be taken into account. The results indicate that the shape of the longitudinal stress distribution in an individual web or flange panel is quite independent of the dimensions of the other panels. Based on this observation, design charts and empirical formulas for estimating the shear lag effects are developed for practical applications.