Abstract
It is well known that stress concentration occurs around wall openings when they are subjected to shear forces. Until now, almost all investigations have dealt with the normal stress concentration around or at corner of the openings. However, the increase of shear stresses slightly away from the openings have not been precisely examined. Model tests of reinforced concrete walls with openings subjected to shear forces show that large cracks occur in zones where shear stresses increase, and that these cracks cause the failure. In this paper, we propose to solve the problem of shear walls having square or rectangular openings by two dimensional problems in the theory of elasticity. And accuracy of results from the theory is examined by photoelastic experiments. The following results are obtained. In order to design a shear wall with opening, not only the normal stress concentration immediately surrounding the opening but also the increase of shear stresses slightly away from the opening may be considered. The maximum shear stress ratio to the mean shear stress in the framed wall with square opening is 1.4.
