Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991

www.elsevier.com/locate/engstruct

Analysis of shear wall with openings using super elements

H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee ∗
Department of Architectural Engineering Sungkyunkwan University, Chun-chun-dong, Jang-an-gu, Suwon, 440-746, South Korea

Received 17 April 2002; received in revised form 29 January 2003; accepted 3 February 2003

Abstract

The box system that consists of reinforced concrete walls and slabs is adopted for many high-rise apartment buildings recently
constructed. In an apartment building, shear walls may have one or more openings for functional reasons. Some researches on the
analysis of shear wall with openings were performed, but some restrictions prevent those research results from being applied to
the practical analysis and design procedure. It is necessary to use fine mesh finite element models for an accurate analysis of a
box system structure with openings. But it would take a significant amount of computational time and memory if the entire building
structure were subdivided into a finer mesh. An efficient analysis method that can be used regardless of the number, size and
location of openings is proposed in this study. The analysis method uses super elements developed using the matrix condensation
technique. Static and dynamic analyses of example structures having various types of openings were performed to verify the
efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method. The analyses of example structures demonstrated that the proposed method can
be used for the analysis of a shear wall structure with openings. Outstanding accuracy in analysis could be achieved with drastically
reduced computational time and memory.
 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Shear wall with openings; Super element; Matrix condensation; Fictitious stiff beam

1. Introduction research on efficient analyses of shear wall with open-

Recently, many high-rise apartment buildings are con-
structed, especially in Asian regions, using the box sys-
tem which consists only of reinforced concrete walls and
slabs. The shear walls in a box system structure may
have openings for the windows, doors and duct spaces
for functional reasons as shown in Fig. 1(a). Window
and door type openings, which are frequently used in
shear walls of the box system structures, are shown in
Fig. 1(b) and (c). The number, location and size of open-
ings affects the behavior of a structure as well as stresses
in the shear wall. It is necessary to use a fine mesh finite
element model for an accurate analysis of a shear wall
with openings, but if the entire apartment building struc-
ture were subdivided into a finer mesh with a large num-
ber of elements, it would require a significant amount of
computational time and memory. Therefore, much
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-31-290-7554 fax: +82-31-290-
7570.
E-mail address: dglee@skku.ac.kr (D.-G. Lee).
ings has been undertaken [1–4]. The number, location
and size of the openings seriously affected the efficiency
and accuracy of these analysis methods. Because most
of this research has been focused on the development of
the approximate stiffness of the shear wall with open-
ings, high stress concentrations at corners of openings
could not be obtained by their analysis methods.
Framed structures with shear wall cores are frequently
adopted as the structural system for high-rise building
structures. This structural system would also have many
openings for the entrance to elevators or staircases etc.
An example structure using the shear wall-frame system
is shown in Fig. 2. Generally, plane stress elements and
beam elements are used to model the shear wall core
and frames respectively in the analysis of this kind of
building. A plane stress element should have drilling
degrees of freedom to represent the connection of shear
wall core and frames. Otherwise, the bending moment
at the end of a beam cannot be transferred to the shear
wall. Due to this reason, previous research about the
connection between shear wall and frame has been
undertaken [5–8].

0141-0296/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0141-0296(03)00041-5
982 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2. Frame structure with shear wall core.
The method proposed in this study can be used regard-
less of the number, size and location of openings. It uses
super elements for an efficient analysis and fictitious
beams were introduced to enforce the compatibility con-
dition at the interfaces of super elements. Static and
dynamic analyses of example structures with various
number, location and size of openings were performed
to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed
analysis method.
2. Analysis of shear wall with openings
In this section, the plane stress elements for the analy-
sis of shear walls are presented and also the merits and
demerits of the analysis method proposed by Choi and
Bang [2] were discussed.
2.1. Finite elements for analysis of shear wall
The Q4 element which has two translational DOFs per
node as shown in Fig. 3(a) is commonly used for the
Fig. 3.
Shear wall with openings.
analysis of shear wall systems [9]. Because displacement
shape functions of this element are expressed in linear
functions, deformation of element edges can be
expressed by straight lines and the shear stresses in an
element are constant and cannot represent the actual
stress distribution accurately if the finite element mesh
is not fine. Also it is not easy to connect this element
with beam elements because the drilling DOFs do not
exist. Therefore, the 12 DOFs plane stress element (Lee
element) [10] with drilling DOFs as shown in Fig. 3(b)
was used in this study to solve this problem.
Some research on plane stress elements with drilling
degrees of freedom was undertaken [5–7]. The first rea-
son for using the Lee element is that the compatibility
between the Lee element and beam elements is well sat-
isfied because the displacement shape functions at the
four edges of the Lee element are identical to those of
the typical beam element. The second reason is that the
shear stress distribution can be represented quite accu-
rately, even if one element per story is used.
Analysis of the shear wall structure shown in Fig. 4
was performed to verify the efficiency of the Lee
element comparing the shear stress distribution in a shear
wall structure. Four types of finite element meshes illus-
trated in Fig. 5 using the Q4 elements were used in the
analysis while only one Lee element per story was used,
as shown in Fig. 5(a). The analysis results of models
using the Q4 element and Lee element are compared to
the exact solution obtained from the theory of elasticity
in Fig. 6. From the results of analyses, it could be
noticed that the shear stress distribution of the model
using the Q4 element is getting closer to the exact sol-
ution as the number of finite elements was increased.
However, the model using the Lee element provided
Plane stress element for shear wall.
 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991 983

2.2. Previous studies on the analysis of shear wall

with openings

In a practical sense, the analysis method proposed by

Choi and Bang [2] is one of the most efficient methods
among previous research about the analysis of shear wall
with openings. A simple rectangular element that can be
used in the effective analysis of a shear wall structure
with openings was proposed in their research. The stiff-
ness matrix of this plane stress element with openings
was derived as illustrated in Fig. 7. The stiffness matrix
of a plane stress element with openings (Kc) is obtained
by subtracting the stiffness matrix of an element occupy-
ing the area of opening (K1) from the stiffness matrix
of a plane stress element without openings (K0) using
Eqs (1) and (2). But there is a difference in the formu-
lation procedures for K0 and K1. The general procedure
for the stiffness matrix of a plane stress element is used
Fig. 4. Example structure. to obtain K1.

K0 ⫽ t 冕冕1

⫺1
1

⫺1
BTEB兩J兩dxdh (1)

K1 ⫽ t 冕冕b2

b1
a2

a1
BTEB兩J兩dxdh (2)

In the case of K0, the possible nonconforming dis-

placement modes are added to the element by modifying
the shape function and then additional DOFs due to the
addition of nonconforming modes are eliminated by the
static condensation. Lateral displacements of the model
using a plane stress element with openings were similar
to those of a fine mesh model when the opening was
small, but the error in lateral displacements tended to
increase as the opening became larger. Also stress con-
centrations at the corners of the opening could not be
represented. The method proposed by Choi and Bang for
the analysis of shear wall with openings seems to trade
accuracy for the efficiency.
Fig. 5. Mesh types of Q4 element.
3. Analysis of shear wall with openings using super
elements

almost the same shear stress distribution to the exact sol- For an accurate analysis of shear wall with openings,
ution, even if only one element per story was used. it is necessary to use a fined mesh model, but if the entire

Fig. 6. Comparison of shear stress distribution from Q4 elements and Lee elements(A–A’).
984 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991
Fig. 7. Procedure composing stiffness matrix of plane stress element with openings.
building structure were subdivided into a finer mesh with
a large number of elements, it would cost a large amount
of computational time and memory. And also, it is
inconvenient to use inconsistent grids for the shear wall
and frame in modeling the structure. Therefore, it would
be very useful if the analysis of a shear wall structure
with openings could be performed without such prob-
lems.
3.1. Development of super elements for shear wall
with openings
Some of the high-rise apartment buildings adopt the
box system that has repeated arrangement of residential
units with the same architectural plan on each floor. Fig.
8(a) shows a three story shear wall structure with win-
dow type openings and Fig. 8(b) shows a fine mesh
model for this structure using many plane stress
elements. This fine mesh model can be separated into
three substructures having the same configuration in
each story as shown in Fig. 8(c). Super elements illus-
trated in Fig. 8(d) could be generated if all of the DOFs
except those for the node at the corners of the shear wall
in a story are eliminated using the matrix condensation
technique,. Then, the shear wall structure is constructed
by joining the corner nodes of a generated super element
as shown in Fig. 8(e).
For the efficiency in the analysis, the stiffness matrix
of a super element needs to be developed with the least
Fig. 8. Modeling procedure of a shear wall with openings by using super elements.
number of nodes. Therefore, if all of the DOFs except
the four nodes at the corners of a wall in a story are
eliminated using the matrix condensation technique as
shown in Fig. 8(d), the number of nodes in a super
element is identical to that of a conventional plane stress
element. This procedure is represented using the matrix
form in Eqs (3) and (4). The static equilibrium equation
for a super element can be rearranged by separating the
DOFs for the corners from those for the inner area of a
super element as follows;
冋 册冋 册 冋 册
Sii Sic Di Ai
⫽ (3)
Sci Scc Dc Ac
where subscripts i and c represent the inner area and
corners of a super element respectively. Eliminating the
DOFs for the inner area by matrix condensation, the
static equilibrium equation can be represented for the
DOFs only at the corners only as follows;
∗
[Scc]{Dc} ⫽ {Ac∗} (4)
where, and
{A∗c } ⫽ {Ac}⫺[Sci][Sii]⫺1{Ai} and [Scc
∗
] ⫽ [Scc]
⫺[Sci][Sii]⫺1[Sic]
The matrix S∗cc is the stiffness matrix for the super
element having nodes only at corners of a shear wall and
Eq. (4) is the equilibrium equation for a super element.
 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991 985

3.2. Compatibility condition at boundaries of super

elements

If super elements are joined at corner nodes for the

analysis efficiency, the DOFs of the super element are
identical to those of a conventional plane stress element.
When these super elements are used in the analytical
model, the compatibility condition will not be satisfied
at interfaces of super elements. Therefore, the lateral
stiffness of the entire structure may be underestimated
in comparison to that of the fine mesh model sharing
all nodes at the boundaries. The compatibility condition
should be satisfied at interfaces of super elements to
improve the accuracy in the analysis. Thus, it is neces-
sary to enforce the compatibility condition without using
nodes at the interfaces of super elements to improve the
accuracy and efficiency in the analysis. Fig. 10. Example structure to select the stiffness of fictitious beam.

example structure shown in Fig. 10. As the fictitious

4. Use of fictitious stiff beams beam is getting stiffer, the roof displacement of the pro-
posed model converges to that of the refined model as
4.1. Use of fictitious beams for analysis of shear wall shown in Fig. 11 where If represents the stiffness of a
with window type opening fictitious beam having 30 cm × 30 cm section. For a
perfect compatibility condition at the boundaries, the
Very stiff fictitious beams introduced by Lee et al.,
[11] were used to enforce the compatibility conditions
at boundaries of super elements in this study. Fig. 9 illus-
trates the role of fictitious beams used in the process of
developing super elements for shear walls with window
type openings. A shear wall with a window type opening
can be represented using many finite elements as illus-
trated in Fig. 9(a). Fictitious beams are added to the
boundaries of the shear wall as shown in Fig. 9(b). Then,
all of the DOFs in the shear wall except those for the
node at the ends of the fictitious beams are eliminated
using the matrix condensation technique as shown in
Fig. 9(c). The surplus stiffness introduced by the fic-
titious beams can be eliminated by subtracting the flex-
ural stiffness of fictitious beams from the stiffness of the
super element as shown in Fig. 9(d). It should be noticed
that the fictitious beams in Fig. 9(a) and (b) are subdiv-
ided into many elements to share nodes with plane stress
elements while the fictitious beam in Fig. 9(d) has nodes
at both ends.
To determine the appropriate bending stiffness for the Fig. 11. Comparison of roof displacement according to the stiffness
fictitious beam, the static analysis was performed for the of fictitious beam.

Fig. 9. Use of fictitious beams for shear wall with window type opening.
986 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991
Fig. 12. Deformed shape of a shear wall structure with window type openings.
fictitious beam should be infinitely stiff as shown in Fig.
11. However, if the fictitious beam is too stiff, it may
cause numerical errors in the matrix condensation pro-
cedure. On the contrary, the compatibility condition at
the boundaries is not satisfied if the fictitious beam is
too flexible in comparison to the shear wall. A rule of
thumb to determine the stiffness of the fictitious beams
is to use a stiff beam having the same thickness with the
corresponding shear wall and the depth assumed to be
the story height. The deformed shape of the upper and
lower sides of a super element generated using the
matrix condensation technique is governed by the
behavior of the fictitious beams. This effect is main-
tained, even if the surplus stiffness introduced by the
fictitious beams is eliminated.
Fig. 12 illustrates the effects of the fictitious beams
used for the development of the super element. The fine
mesh model is assumed to provide the most accurate
result as shown in Fig. 12(a) and the deformed shape of
the model using super elements are shown in Fig. 12(b)
and (c) respectively. Fig. 12(b) illustrates that the
deformed shape of the model using the super element
derived without fictitious beams does not satisfy the
compatibility condition at the interfaces. It can be easily
noticed that the deformed shape of the model using fic-
titious beams is almost identical to that of the fine
mesh model.
4.2. Use of fictitious beams for analysis of shear wall
with door type opening
The use of fictitious beams in the case of a shear wall
with a door type opening is similar to that of shear wall
with window type opening as shown in Fig. 13. Two
Fig. 13. Use of fictitious beams for shear wall with door type opening.
fictitious beams are added to the boundaries of a shear
wall as shown in Fig. 13(b) and then all of the DOFs in
the shear wall except those at the ends of the fictitious
beams are eliminated as illustrated in Fig. 13(c). At last,
the flexural stiffness of the fictitious beams is subtracted
to eliminate the surplus stiffness introduced by the fic-
titious beams as shown in Fig. 13(d). Models in Fig. 14
were used to verify the efficiency of the fictitious beams
for the model with door type openings. It can be easily
noticed that the proposed analysis method also satisfies
the compatibility condition at boundaries of super
elements by introducing the fictitious beams.
5. Analysis of example structures
Static analyses of four example structures were perfor-
med to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the pro-
posed analysis method. Example structures with various
type, number, location and size of openings were used
in the analyses. A computer code MIDAS [12] was used
for the analysis of example structures.
5.1. Models used in the analyses
Static analyses of various models as shown in Fig. 15
were performed. Model A is a fine mesh model subdiv-
ided into a large number of finite elements as shown in
Fig. 15(a). Analysis results of this model are assumed
to be the most accurate. The effect of openings was
ignored in Model B as shown in Fig. 15(b) and Model
C, that is used by most of the engineers in practice,
replaces the link beam above the opening with an equiv-
 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991 987

Fig. 14. Deformed shape of a shear wall with door type openings.

Fig. 15. Type of models for analysis of example structures.

alent stiff beam as shown in Fig. 15(c). Model D
employs the super element proposed in this study while
Model E is using the shear wall element with opening
proposed by Choi and Bang [2].
5.2. Shear wall with window type openings
The example structure 1 adopted from the work by
Choi and Bang has window type openings as shown in
Fig. 16(a). Analysis was performed for the cases of a /
b = 0.1, a / b = 0.3 and a / b = 0.5 where a is the width
and height of the opening and b is that of the shear wall
in each story. Lateral displacements of each model are
shown in Fig. 16(b), (c) and (d). When a / b is 0.1, lateral
displacements were similar in all cases since the effects
of openings are not significant. If a / b was increased to
0.3, Model C resulted in somewhat larger displacements
while the other models provided similar lateral displace-
ments. However, the difference in the lateral displace-
ments was noticeable in the case of a / b = 0.5 because
the effect of the opening became more significant. As
expected, the lateral displacement of Model B was

Fig. 16. Shear wall with window type opening.

988 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991
smallest because the openings were not considered. Lat-
eral displacements of Model C that uses equivalent
beams were larger than those of other models. Although
equivalent beams were assigned with the stiffness equiv-
alent to that of link beams in the case of Model C, the
lateral displacements were significantly larger than those
of Model A.
This overestimation of displacements was introduced
by the additional deformation in the upper part of shear
walls that is restrained by link beams in the fine mesh
Model A. In the case of Model E, which used a plane
stress element with an opening, lateral displacements
were smaller than those of Model A. Even when a / b
was 0.5, Model D proposed in this study provided almost
the same results to those of Model A that is expected to
provide the most accurate results. The Von-Mises stress
distribution of Models A, B and D are shown in Fig.
17(a), (b) and (c) respectively for the case of a / b equals
to 0.33. Model D provided stress concentration at cor-
ners openings with accuracy comparable to that of
Model A.
5.3. Shear wall with door type openings
Lateral displacements of example structure 2 with the
height of the openings 66, 77 and 88% of the story
height are shown in Fig. 18(b), (c) and (d) respectively
while the width of the opening was fixed. As could be
expected, Model B without considering openings
resulted in identical lateral displacements in all cases and
the error in the lateral displacement increases as the
opening was higher. The lateral displacements of Model
C using equivalent beams were larger than those of
Model A when the opening was small. But if the opening
was higher, the lateral displacements of Model C were
getting closer to those of Model A. The proposed Model
D could provide almost identical results to those of
Model A regardless of the height of the opening.
When the width of the opening in the example struc-
ture was 11, 33 and 55% of that of the shear wall
Fig. 17. Von-Mises stress distribution in a shear wall structure with
window type openings (a / b = 0.33).
respectively while the height of the opening was fixed
as 210 cm, example structure experienced lateral dis-
placements as shown in Fig. 19. As the opening become
larger, the lateral displacements of Model C using equiv-
alent beams were larger than Model A while the pro-
posed Model D could provide an almost identical result
to that of Model A in all cases. The results from Model
E for example structures, except the first one, were not
provided because they were not available since it is not
applicable to such cases.
5.4. Shear wall with openings connected to frame
Framed structures with shear wall core are frequently
adopted as the structural system for high-rise building
structures. Therefore, analyses of example structure 3
consisting of shear wall with door type openings that
was connected to a frame as shown in Fig. 20 were per-
formed. The results from Model B are not provided here-
after because they are not so meaningful. As shown in
Fig. 20(b), the lateral displacements of the proposed
Model D were very close to those of Model A while
Model C overestimated lateral displacement signifi-
cantly.
5.5. Shear wall with window and door type openings
Example structure 4 has window and door type open-
ings with a frame on one side as illustrated in Fig. 21. As
could be expected, the proposed method provided almost
identical result to that of Model A. In a similar trend
with example structure 3, Model C overestimated the
displacements significantly.
5.6. Dynamic analysis
Eigenvalue analysis and time history analysis were
performed to verify the accuracy in prediction of seismic
response of building structures. The ground acceleration
time history of the El Centro earthquake (NS, 1940) was
used as the input ground motion. The computational time
and the number of DOFs used for the analyses of
example structures were compared to verify the
efficiency of the proposed method.
Example structure 2 with door type openings with the
size of 90 cm × 210 cm is shown in Fig. 22(a). The
results of eigenvalue analysis and time history analysis
indicate that the analysis results of Model A and D are
almost identical while Model C provided longer periods
of vibration resulting in somewhat deviated displace-
ment time history.
Similar trend was observed in the periods of vibration
and displacement time histories of the example structure
4 as shown in Fig. 23. The computational time and the
number of DOFs used for the analyses are compared in
 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991 989

Fig. 18. Lateral displacements of shear wall structure with door type openings for different opening height.

Fig. 19. Lateral displacements of shear wall structure with door type openings for different opening width.

Fig. 20. Shear wall with door type openings connected to a frame.

Fig. 21. Lateral displacement of a frame structure with shear wall

with door type and window type openings.
990 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991

Fig. 22. Natural period and displacement time history of a shear wall structure with door type openings.

Fig. 23. Natural period and displacement time history of a frame structure with shear wall with window door type openings.

Table 1. The analysis for Model D required less than
5% the computational time used for Model A.
6. Conclusions
An efficient analysis method for the analysis of shear
wall with openings was proposed in this study using
super elements derived by introducing fictitious beams.
The accuracy and the efficiency of the proposed method
were investigated by performing analysis of various
example structures. The major observations and findings
are summarized as follows:
1. The lateral displacements of the model using a plane
stress element with opening proposed by Choi and
Bang were similar to those of a fine mesh model when
the opening was small, but the error in lateral dis-
placement increased as the opening became larger.
2. The lateral displacements of the model using equival-
ent beams to represent the link beam above the open-
ings were similar to those of the fine mesh model
when the depth of the link beams was small. But the
lateral stiffness of the structure was underestimated
as the depth of the link became larger resulting in
larger lateral displacements compared to the fine
mesh model.

Table 1
Number of DOFs and computation time for analysis

Computational Time (sec)

Models Number of DOFs Assembly M & K Solution of equation Eigenvalue analysis Time history analysis Total

Model A 1890 7 2 69 39 117

Model C 210 1 1 2 4 8
Model D 150 6 1 2 3 11
 H.-S. Kim, D.-G. Lee / Engineering Structures 25 (2003) 981–991 991

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