Calculation with a spread sheet of wind load distribution over shear walls

One of the problems of interest in the seismic or wind design of masonry buildings is the manner in which a lateral load is distributed to a system of shear elements. This paper presents a way of calculating the distribution using a spreadsheet program. The presented simplified method, based on finite element calculation principles, can be used for design purposes, to obtain starting values (dimensions) for more complex calculations and for control purposes. The shear wall system may consist of an arbitrary number of single shear walls, not necessarily positioned in a rectangular grid. The shear walls are schematized as cantilevers, coupled by floors, which are infinitely stiff in their plane but flexible in their out of plane direction. The method is explained for three coupling floors but is similar for any number of coupled floors. The wall properties are used to establish stiffness matrices referring to a local coordinate system and then, using a location matrix, transferred to a global coordinate system.