Masonry Building Shear Wall Load Transfer

[azureblue83]

Hello.

Many masonry buildings in big cities, such as New York, are narrow rectangular shape. The interior floor joists/beams typically runs along the short direction, supported by the wall. So, the long direction wall is a bearing wall + shear wall, while the short direction wall is none load bearing (except self weight) and a shear wall.

If the lateral load is in the long direction, the floor diaphragm can transfer the lateral load to the long direction shear wall.

But if the lateral load is in the short direction, since the floor joists are not connected to the short direction wall, the floor diaphragm cannot transfer shear load. So how does the load get transferred to the shear wall?

I read somewhere that a masonry building this type can be treated as a box. Lateral load in the short direction can be transferred at the 4 wall corners, when the orthogonal wall intersect; thru interlocking the orthogonal courses and use horizontal 90 degree continuous reinforcement at the wall corners. Is this analysis correct?

Is there another way to analyze this problem?

Is there way to engage the floor diaphragm to transfer the lateral load in the short direction to the shear wall?

 

[msquared48]

Wood inset ledger sitting on a 4" brick ledge and thru - bolting with metal plate rosettes on the outside face.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)