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Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

(OP)
How are you guys going about analyzing the foundation at the corners of buildings for shear walls?  I've usually assumed that the wall wouldn't over-turn due to the fact that it would have to take everything behind it, but I'm not sure that is the correct way to go about it anymore.

Anyone have suggestions?  How much wall/foundation around the corner can you use in your stability calcs?

Thank you,

D

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

You know what they say when you assume?

This is totally a case by case basis, and depends on the exact type of walls and foundations, not to mention the loading of course. You can tie walls together specifically like in tilt-wall construction with plates/angles, or with CMU you have a certain amount of that inherent in the sawtoothing or with a tie column at the corner. That may be OK for smaller loads. If the overturning is high enough I will design the foundation to carry a segment of the return wall, or detail my wall in such a way to act as unit, or both. However you detail it is how it is going to work, I know that is oversimplification but you get the gist....

If you are talking about wood frame I take care of this at the foundation level.

 

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

(OP)
Thank you for the info.

I am referring more to wood shear walls.  It's a bit of a curiosity as the loads generally aren't too high but would like to have my calcs be a little bit more accurate.

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

Hopefully all your shear forces have been taken care of by the sheathing and your ties to the footing.

So just tie them together to keep everything straight and happy.  You might have a bit of straight line deflection in the walls - but again I would expect it to be minimal.

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

With wood shear walls it would depend on the size of the foundations and the net uplift force due to overturning. I may widen the foundations in that area or add some top bars for negative bending if they weren't already there. That general strategy at least...

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

(OP)
Thank you.

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

If you have two shearwalls coming together at a corner, why not just compare the compression from the one to the uplift of the other and see if you're covered or not?

You might be, but you might not be.  As A2 noted, this is completely project dependent (loads, wall layout, wall lengths, DL's on each, etc..).

RE: Shear Walls/Foundation At Corners

Lion- I don't think there will be much compression in the return wall if you are considering one wind direction at a time.

I have done what you suggest in the same shear wall, many times if you have equal segments the net uplift would be zero, say at a door opening...

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