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Shearwalls allows you to save wall assemblies you commonly use as Standard Walls. These walls are then available to be used by any project.
Input and Program Operation
The program contains a number of Standard Walls by default, and you can change these or add more by pressing "Edit Standard Walls" in the Wall Input View. Form there you can press "Add" to add a new wall, and by selecting from the list of existing Standard Walls, or by pressing "Copy", you can use one of them as a template to make a new one by changing one or more of the wall materials.
Standard walls contain only sheathing and framing material information, not dimensional information. When working in Wall Input View, the program recognizes whether a selected wall or walls have all the same materials as a Standard Wall, and selects that wall automatically if they do. If you select a different Standard Wall, all the Standard Wall materials will be transferred to the selected wall or walls.
In the Default Settings, you can specify the Standard Wall that is used to create the exterior footprint of the structure, which occurs after exiting Structure View and entering Wall Input view.
The program optionally allows you to show the standard wall that was used to make a wall, in Plan View and in Elevation View. To reduce clutter, this can be turned off in the Display Options.
Standard Walls as Wall Design Groups
Standard walls can be designed as a group if you select Design as group for the standard wall and Design in group for the individual walls. The Standard Wall then functions as a Wall Design Group within a project, as well as being able to be used by other projects.
If so, and unknown parameters are part of a standard wall, the program uses the materials designed for the most heavily loaded wall for all walls in the standard wall group with Design in group checked. If you have not designated the shear wall as part of a design group, the program may design several walls that were originally the same standard wall with different materials for the unknown parameters.
If standard walls are to be designed in a group, then changing a wall parameter in the regular wall input view will change the Standard wall, and the change will be made in walls in the structure from that Standard Wall group. If there are unknowns, all walls that are from that standard wall will be designed as a group. When exiting the program, or the next time you exit the Standard Wall dialog, the program will ask you if you want to save Standard walls modified in this manner.
If you inadvertently change a standard wall by changing a regular wall designed in a group, just revert your change using Undo. It will also revert any changes to other walls in the structure that came about because of your change.
Refer to Wall Design Groups for an explanation of how the correlation between Standard Walls and Wall design groups is shown in the Design Results output.
Saving Standard Walls
Standard Walls are saved in a binary file called Shearwalls.wss, that is in the Application Data area of your computer. You can share your standard walls with other Shearwalls users by sending them this file and having them copy it to that location.
Another way of sharing Standard Walls is via the network installation. If installed on a network server, the program accesses the shearwalls.wss file located on the server, so that the standard walls are the same for everyone using the network version.
Contact Technical Support if you experience any problems with the shearwalls.wss file, or assistance in setting up a network installation.