The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

SUBWALL: a special purpose finite element computer program for practical elastic analysis and design of structural walls with substructure option

Le, Dao Quang; Petersson, Hans; Popov, Egor P.

UCB/EERC-77/09, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1977-03, 94 pages (555.6/L4/1977)

An efficient and refined special purpose finite element computer program has been developed for the linear structural analysis and design of complex reinforced concrete walls subjected to arbitrary in-plane static loaidngs. A substructuring technique has been implemented, along with several practical user's options, which contribute to the computational efficiency and economy unavailable in many general purpose computer programs. Large structural walls with multiple openings, nonplanar coupled walls, and staggered wall-beam systems can be analyzed. Openings and offsets in structural walls are represented by special "hole" elements with no structural stiffness. Preparation of input is simple. Few cards are necessary for a relatively large-sized structure. Joint coordinates, element connectivities, and boundary conditions are automatically generated. Output can be requested in terms of tabular printout, element by element printer plots and/or regular plotter plots of displacements, stresses, and reactions. Section forces such as shear, moment, and normal forces in connecting beams can be obtained. The main emphasis of the report is on the practical and economical application of the finite element method rather than on the theoretical aspect of the program development. Throughout the report, linearly elastic behavior of the materials is assumed.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-77-09.pdf (3 MB)