Perforated Wood Shear Walls

"PERFWALL" is a spreadsheet program written in MS-Excel for the purpose of automating analysis of perforated wood shear walls.  Equations and limits of applicability are based on section 4.3 of the 2015 edition of Special Design Provisions for Wind and Seismic (SDPWS-2015) published by the American Wood Council.

Program Assumptions and Limitations:

1.  See SDPWS-2015 for other limits of applicability and further information.  More restrictions and requirements are present than simply those which are incorporated into this worksheet.

2.  This program is the author's interpretation of SDPWS-2015 and has not been reviewed or authorized by the American Wood Council.  User is responsible for confirming output.  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE.

3. This program contains numerous “comment boxes” which include explanations of input or output items, equations used, data tables, etc.  Presence of a “comment box” is denoted by a red triangle in the upper right-hand corner of a cell.  Move the mouse pointer to the desired cell to view the contents of each comment.

4. In general, input fields are shaded yellow and output text is colored blue.  Red text warns of input errors and black text gives context to adjacent information.  This worksheet evaluates only shear walls with at least one perforation, data for which is provided in the column called Opening No. 1.  Other data input columns are optional and grey out if no input is provided in the top row.

5. A variety of combinations of panel thickness, fastener size, and fastener spacing are presented in SDPWS. This program does not attempt to duplicate the full complexity of the source document.  Capacity data for only some of the most common combinations are included.  To check the capacity of combinations not included, look up the nominal capacity and input this value in place of the pre-defined capacity.

6. Input validation equations and data for the sketch are hidden in several columns to the right of input.  These calculations can be displayed by removing sheet protection (there is no password) and un-hiding the columns. Users may freely modify and redistribute copies this work:  it is released into the public domain.

Calculation Reference

American Wood Council

Wind and Seismic

SDPWS-2015