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Create general walls

Tekla Structural Designer
Modified: 14 Jul 2025
2025
Tekla Structural Designer

Create general walls

You can create meshed general walls in level, frame, or structure views. For detailed information on creating general walls, see the following instructions.

Material type

The Grade lists all the available General materials in the Materials database under the current regional code.
Note: Care should be taken when choosing the grade, as some general materials in the database may not be appropriate for meshed walls. Meshed walls resist loads in all directions and isotropic stiffness properties are assumed.

If the grade you want to use is not listed, you can open the Materials dialog and add the grade to the database, taking care to first select the General material type as shown below.

Geometric rules

  • General meshed walls are defined as quadrilaterals in a single plane that can be vertical or sloping, (unlike mid-pier concrete walls which must be rectangular in a vertical plane).
  • Openings are permitted in meshed walls.
  • The alignment and offsets in the wall properties are not structurally significant as they have no affect on the solver elements that are formed in the solver model.
  • Concrete meshed walls can be included in cores, General meshed walls cannot.

Sub-division of meshed walls

Each wall object is split into separate panels only at those construction levels where an element or slab attaches to the wall. At the levels where the wall has been split, wall beam elements are also inserted.

Create rectangular walls in a level view

  1. On the Model tab, in the Walls group, click the arrow below the wall type droplist and pick General Meshed.
  2. Go to the Properties window.
  3. Use the Grade property to select the general material type.
  4. Adjust the top and base level for the wall, if necessary.
  5. Adjust the remaining properties, such as the wall thickness, if necessary.
  6. In the model, click the start point of the wall.
    Tip: If you are using a point along a member, do the following:

    1. Click the member to view its points.

    2. Click the point that you want to use, or type the distance from the start of the member to the desired point.

  7. Click the end point of the wall.

    Tekla Structural Designer creates the wall.

Create rectangular walls in a frame or structure view

Note: In order to define a wall in a frame or structure view, you must have already defined the construction levels between which the wall will run, and the grid points between which it will lie.
  1. On the Model tab, in the Walls group, click the arrow below the wall type droplist and pick General Meshed.
  2. Go to the Properties window.
  3. Ensure the Material Type is set to General, then use the Grade property to select the general material type.
  4. Ensure the Rectangular property is selected.
  5. Adjust the remaining properties, such as the wall thickness, if necessary.
  6. Click a point to define a corner of the wall.
  7. Click a point to define the opposite corner.
    Tekla Structural Designer creates the wall between the selected two points.

Create quadrilateral walls in a frame or structure view

Note: In order to define a wall in a frame or structure view, you must have already defined the construction levels between which the wall will run, and the grid points between which it will lie.
  1. On the Model tab, in the Walls group, click the arrow below the wall type droplist and pick General Meshed.
  2. Go to the Properties window.
  3. Ensure the Rectangular property is unselected.
  4. Ensure the Material Type is set to General, then use the Grade property to select the general material type.
  5. Adjust the top and base level for the wall, if necessary.
  6. Adjust the remaining properties, such as the wall thickness, if necessary.
  7. Click the point where the base of the wall should start.
  8. Click the point where the base of the wall should end.
  9. Click the point where the top of the wall should start.
  10. Click the point where the top of the wall should end.
    Tekla Structural Designer creates the wall between the selected four points.

General wall properties

Select one or more general wall and then use the Properties window to view and modify their properties.

General
Name The automatically generated name.
User Name Can be used to override the automatically generated name if required.
Top Level Specifies the top level for the wall.
Base Level Specifies the bottom level for the wall.
Wall Type

Meshed Shear Wall
Material type General
Assume extra floors supported Enter the number of extra floors supported.
AutomaticGenerate Support

Cleared - a support will only be created if the Generate support property is selected.

Checked - a support will only be created if no members/slabs capable of providing support exist under the wall.
Generate support

Cleared - no support is created under the wall.

Checked - a support is created under the wall.

Note: When a support is created, a line support is formed under a meshed wall, a point support under a mid-pier wall, and a series of point supports under a bearing wall.
Note: When a support is created, its degrees of freedom are as specified in the ‘Wall support’ area of the wall properties.
Plane Indicates the grid along which the wall is placed.
All panels
Grade The grades that are available for General materials are set from the Materials button on the Home ribbon.
Thickness The thickness of the wall.
Alignment

Alignment of the wall:

  • Front
  • Back
  • Middle
  • User
Alignment offset When the alignment is set to User it can be adjusted by specifying an exact offset.
Assume cracked

Assuming concrete sections are cracked has a direct affect on the analysis; smaller modification factors are applied to cracked sections causing an increase in deflection. Indirectly the design can also be affected because the sway/drift sensitivity calculations are also influenced by this assumption.
End 1 extension

The amount the wall is extended or trimmed back from end 1.

A positive extension extends the wall length beyond its insertion point.

A negative extension trims the wall back from the insertion point.

See: Apply wall extensions

Note:

End 1 and End 2 are identified by switching on Walls > Direction in Scene Content.

They are assigned when the wall is created as follows.

Rectangular wall defined by 2 points:

If the two points are at the same elevation - End 1 is at the first point clicked.

If the points at different elevations - End 1 is at the lowest of the two points.

Non-rectangular wall defined by 4 points:

When viewed face on, if the plane of the wall is defined in a clockwise fashion, End 1 is at the right; otherwise it is at the left.
End 2 extension

The amount the wall is extended or trimmed back from end 2.

A positive extension extends the wall length beyond its insertion point.

A negative extension trims the wall back from the insertion point.

See: Apply wall extensions

Releases

Minor Top,

Minor Bottom

Fixed

Pinned

Continuous (incoming members pinned)

For further details, see: Wall releases

Edge 1,

Edge 1

Fixed

Pinned

Continuous (incoming members pinned)

For further details, see: Wall releases
Live Load reduction [ACI/AISC], Imposed Load reduction [Other codes]

Override calculated value

 This option allows the user to specify their own percentage of load reduction to cater for situations where the automatically calculated value is inappropriate.

See: Overview of live or imposed load reductions
Analysis & design control
Orthotropic By default, the slab item is treated as having isotropic material properties. Selecting this option allows assigning orthotropic material properties.

For further details, see: Orthotropic walls
Calculate properties

Only available when the Orthotropic option has been selected.

Allows setting material properties in two in-plane directions automatically based on the stiffness modification X and Y factors below.

For details of how the parameters are calculated, see: Orthotropic wall implementation

X factor - along the length of the wall

Y factor along the height of the wall

Only available when the Calculate properties option has been selected.

Applies stiffness modification factors in the local X and Y directions
Ex, Ey, Gxy, Gxz | Gyz, 𝜈x, and 𝜈y

Allows manually setting material properties, such as Young’s moduli, shear moduli, and the Poisson’s ratio.

The fields become editable when the Calculate properties option is cleared (except 𝜈y, which remains read-only).

Note: No distinction is made between Gxz and Gyz out-of-plane shear moduli.
Apply modification factors

By default, (unless the Orthotropic option has been selected), the modification factors specified in Analysis settings are applied. When this option is cleared the modification factors are not applied.

See also: Use of modification factors

Sway and drift checks
Sway/Seismic drift checks

By default all stacks of all walls are taken into account in the calculation to determine the sway sensitivity of the building. The results of this calculation being accessed from the Review toolbar.

This parameter provides a facility to exclude particular wall panels from these calculations to avoid spurious results associated with very small panel lengths. You can either clear the checkbox located under ‘All Panels’ to exclude the entire wall, or you can exclude a particular panel by clearing the checkbox located under that panel only.
Wind drift check,

Wind drift ratio

Wind drift is automatically checked against the specified limiting ratio, (which can be set differently for different columns). The results of this calculation are accessed from the Review toolbar.

If you don’t want this check to be performed you can either clear the checkbox located under ‘All Panels’ to exclude the entire wall, or you can exclude a particular stack by clearing the checkbox located under that panel only.
Wall support
Angles

(Fx/Fy/Fz, Mx/My/Mz)

Used to specify the translational and rotational degrees of freedom in which the support acts:

• Fixed - indicates the support is fixed in the specified direction.

• Free - indicates the support is free to move, or has a stiffness applied in the specified direction.
Translational stiffnesses (x/y/z)

Used to specify the translational stiffness applied in a direction that is not fixed:

  • Release

  • Spring Linear

  • Spring Non-linear
Rotational stiffnesses (x/y/z)

Used to specify the rotational stiffness applied in a direction that is not fixed:

  • Release

  • Spring Linear

  • Spring Non-linear
Panel 1, 2, 3 etc.

In a multi-panel wall properties can be entered for a specific panel, over-riding those defined at the All panels level.
Count the floor as being supported

Top level

(Intermediate levels)

Base level

(Head Code Eurocode, BS or IS)

If selected, the floor will be treated as supported when calculating the live/imposed load reductions.
Restrained

Used to indicate at which levels the wall is restrained.

Note: Only levels with a connecting member are listed.
Meshing
Override Model’s Select this checkbox to override the default wall mesh size that is specified in the Structure properties.
Wall Mesh Horizontal Size Used to override the default wall horizontal mesh size (1.000m).
Wall Mesh Vertical Size Used to override the default wall vertical mesh size (1.000m).
Wall Mesh Type

Available mesh types:

  • Quad only
  • Tri only
  • Quad dominant

See: How meshed walls are represented in solver models
UDA

Name

Finish

Class

Phase

Note

File

A customizable list of the attributes that can be applied to individual members and panels.

See: Work with user-defined attributes

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