In-plane stiffness of shear walls with openings

In this paper, a new method is presented to determine the in-plane stiffness of shear walls with openings, in which the spandrels are assumed flexible, and can translate and rotate under lateral load. The in-plane stiffnesses of shear walls with openings obtained by using the new method are generally much different from the results obtained by the well known three methods. However, the in-plane stiffnesses of the walls determined by linear elastic finite element method are generally in good agreement with the results obtained by the new method. To estimate the in-plane stiffness of shear walls with openings, design charts have been developed by employing the new method.