Improving the Performance of Gypsum Wallboard in Wood Frame Shear Walls

Abstract

The overall goal of this project was to design a wood frame shear wall that could withstand greater displacement before damage occurred to the gypsum wall board (GWB). A total of 14 shear walls consisting of seven different designs with two walls built per design were tested to failure. Six of these walls had 1,105×610 mm window openings and eight did not. Shear wall test behavior generally agreed with the ASCE/SEI 41-06 performance-based drift criteria. The results of the shear wall visual failure comparison indicated that all innovative shear wall designs outperformed the control designs at 1% drift. This was because less GWB damage was observed in the innovative shear wall designs. At 2 and 3% drift, two designs performed worse than the control. Three designs performed superior to the control designs at 2 and 3% drift. The greater performance of all these designs can be attributed to the increase in strength and stiffness of these shear walls. However, superior performance of the two designs was attri...