A building can face a lot of lateral load due to many reasons. Some of these include earthquake loads, sliding forces, water pressure, wind pressure etc. This often occurs with bridges, retaining walls, basements, extremely tall buildings, precast buildings and culverts, masonry walls where seismic activity is stronger, and steel columns and piers.
Shear keys can be constructed by concrete in precast buildings, and of steel in steel structures. Sometimes, steel reinforcements are made to play the part of shear keys as well. They improve the lateral stability of a building.
Placement of Shear Keys: Where the shear keys will be placed differs a lot depending upon the structure they need to support. Let us discuss them below.
Bridges: In small to medium bridge structures, shear keys are placed in the abutments of the bridge. This provides lateral transverse support to the structure above during sidewise movement.
During an earthquake or similar strong lateral force application, the shear keys act as a sacrifice. Therefore, the strong seismic forces are prevented from entering the abutment piles.
They act better when they are placed on the outer side of the bridge. However, this makes them difficult to inspect or repair.
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Published By
Arka Roy
www.constructioncost.co
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