Wood shearwall reinforcement in seismic retrofit project

[Dannnnnny]

Hello all,
need help in figuring out reinforcement approach to one of mandatory soft-story projects that i'm handling now.

So it's a 4-story building and I'm trying to reinforce one of sides with wood shearwall.
However, since I can only place shearwall one side, i.e. outside, as placing shearwall inside gets complicated due to presence of tenants, I can't seem to meet the requirement. I believe I should consider using moment frame, but I was wondering if using thicker plywood could increase allowable shear diaphragm values.

SDPWS2015 only provides the values up to where 19/32" plywood is used. So does that mean I won't be able to use thicker plywood by code? If I ever could do so, any idea where I can maybe find those related information?

I flipped through SDPWS, CBC and NDS but couldn't find solid solution to this.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Harbringer]

Plywood shearwall capacity is governed by the nailing. Thicker plywood will not give you ever increasing shear capacities.

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"...if using thicker plywood could increase allowable shear diaphragm values."
Make sure you are using the shear wall table from the SDPWS not the diaphragm table. They have different values.

If I had such high unit shears on a 4 story building I'd make sure I can even make the holdowns and foundation work.