Improving the Performance of Gypsum Wallboard in Wood Frame Shear Walls

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 x 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 attributable to the similar stiffness of both sides of the shear wall, resulting in equal load sharing and less damage to the GWB. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000165. (C) 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.