Shear wall aspect ratio reducing frame (ARRF)

Abstract

My invention, the Shear Wall Aspect Ratio Reducing Frame is a simple, economical, efficient, easy to install device that allows greater oppotunity and flexibility in the size and location of openings in the walls of wood frame constructed buildings particularly houses. The ARRF would replace the commercial, pre-fabricated systems now in use which are costly and inefficient labor-intensive shear wall devices. The ARRF achieves its goal by reducing the moment arm in the overturning equations that are used to determine the uplift forces in a shear wall. The ARRF reduces forces in walls rather than increase their bulk which is the strategic concept now in use throughout the design professions and the construction industry to solve the aspect ratio problem.

1 . I claim my invention, the Shear Wall Aspect Ratio Reducing Frame (ARRF) is a component in wood frame construction that reduces the aspect ratio of shear walls to a level acceptable to building officials (building codes) thus making pre-fabricated, full height, heavy duty shear walls unnecessary.