General Page 1 of 4

COMPUTERS AND STRUCTURES, INC., BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA DECEMBER 2001

SHEAR WALL DESIGN ACI318-99
Technical Note
Wall Pier Shear Design
This Technical Note describes how the program designs each leg of concrete
wall piers for shear using ACI318-99. Note that in this program you cannot
specify shear reinforcing and then have the program check it. The program
only designs the pier for shear and reports how much shear reinforcing is re-
quired. The shear design is performed at stations at the top and bottom of the
pier.
General
The wall pier shear reinforcing is designed for each of the design load combi-
nations. The following steps are involved in designing the shear reinforcing for
a particular wall pier section for a particular design loading combination.
1. Determine the factored forces P
u
, M
u
and V
u
that are acting on the wall
pier section. Note that P
u
and M
u
are required for the calculation of V
c
.
2. Determine the shear force, V
c
, that can be carried by the concrete.
3. Determine the required shear reinforcing to carry the balance of the shear
force.
Step 1 needs no further explanation. The following two sections describe in
detail the algorithms associated with the Steps 2 and 3.
Note:
The term R
LW
that is used as a multiplier on all
'
c
f terms in this Technical Note is a
shear strength reduction factor that applies to lightweight concrete. It is equal to 1 for
normal weight concrete. This factor is specified in the concrete material properties.
Shear Wall Design ACI318-99 Wall Pier Shear Design
Determine the Concrete Shear Capacity Page 2 of 4
Determine the Concrete Shear Capacity
Given the design force set P
u
, M
u
and V
u
acting on a wall pier section, the
shear force carried by the concrete, V
c
, is calculated using Equations 1 and 2.
( )
( )
p
p u
p p
'
c LW c
4L
0.8L P
0.8L t f 3.3R V Eqn. 1
where V
c
may not be greater than
( )
p p
p
u
u
p p
u '
c LW p
'
c LW c
0.8L t
2
L
V
M
Abs
t L
P
0.2 f 1.25R L
f 0.6R V
1
1
1
1
1
]
1

,
_

,
_

+
Eqn. 2
Equation 2 doesn't apply if
2
L
V
M
Abs
p
u
u

,
_

is negative or zero, or if V
u
is zero.
If the tension is large enough that Equation 1 or Equation 2 results in a nega-
tive number, V
c
is set to zero.
Note that these equations are identical to Equations 11-31 and 11-32 in
Chapter 11, Section 11.10.6 of ACI318-99 with the ACI dimension "d" set
equal to 0.8*L
p
. The term R
LW
that is used as a multiplier on all
'
c
f terms in
this Technical Note is a shear strength reduction factor that applies to light-
weight concrete. It is equal to 1 for normal weight concrete. This factor is
specified in the concrete material properties.
Recall that in the program tension is positive; thus, the negative sign on the
second term in Equation 1 is consistent with Equation 11-31 in ACI318-99.
Similarly, the negative sign on the second term in the parenthesis of Equation
2 is consistent with Equation 11-32 in ACI318-99.
Note:
You can set the output units for the distributed shear reinforcing in the shear wall design
preferences.
Shear Wall Design ACI318-99 Wall Pier Shear Design
Determine the Required Shear Reinforcing Page 3 of 4
Determine the Required Shear Reinforcing
Seismic and Nonseismic Piers
Given V
u
and V
c
, Equation 3 provides the required shear reinforcing in area
per unit length (e.g., square inches per inch) for both seismic and nonseismic
wall piers (as indicated by the "Design is Seismic" item in the pier design
overwrites). Note that additional requirements for seismic piers are provided
later in this section.
) 0.8L ( f
V -
) Abs(V
A
p
ys
c
u
v

Eqn. 3
where,
( )
p p
'
c LW
u
n
0.8L t f R 0 1 exceed not must
) (V Abs
V

per ACI318-99
Section 11.10.3.
In Equation 3, the term is equal to
vns
for nonseismic piers and to
vs
for
seismic piers. The (phi) factors are specified in the shear wall design prefer-
ences.
Additional Requirements for Seismic Piers
For shear design of seismic wall piers, the following additional requirements
are also checked.
The nominal shear strength of the wall pier is limited to:
p p ys
p
v '
c LW n
t L f
t
A
f 2R V

,
_

+ Eqn. 4
where,
p p
'
c LW
vs
u
n
L t f R 8 exceed not must
) (V Abs
V

per ACI318-99 Section

21.6.4.4.
Shear Wall Design ACI318-99 Wall Pier Shear Design
Determine the Required Shear Reinforcing Page 4 of 4
A
v
is the horizontal shear reinforcing per unit vertical length (height) of the
wall pier. Equation 4 is based on Equation 21-7 in Section 21.6.4.1 of the
ACI318-99. Since V
u
=
vs
V
n
, A
v
can be calculated as shown in Equation 5.
p ys
p p
'
c LW
vs
u
v
L f
t L f 2R -
) (V Abs
A

Eqn. 5
Note that the maximum wall pier nominal shear force is limited by the pro-
gram to
p p
'
c LW
L t f R 8 not
p p
'
c LW
L t f R 10 .