The disadvantage of conventional fiber model is its neglect of the nonlinear shear effect, and it is difficult to simulate the nonlinear response of the shear wall and other similar components with fiber model. The method of directly defining the nonlinear shear restoring force relationship at the section level was suggested. Within this method, the flexural and axial stiffness could be calculated by the traditional fiber model formulas, while the shear stiffness was calculated according to the predefined sectional shear restoring force relationships. The combined integrated sectional stiffness matrix could be obtained by combining the shear stiffness, flexural stiffness and axial stiffness. Based on the OpenSees framework and its functional command of Section Aggregator, it was convenient to simulate the nonlinear shear effect at the section level. Taking the experimental results of 15 shear walls of China as the benchmark, the formulas of Hirosawa, which was used to define the characteristic parameters of the shear restoring force skeleton curve, were calibrated and modified. The low cyclic reserved loading tests of two typical shear walls were simulated by the above-mentioned method. Results showed that the modeling method of considering the shear effect could simulate the maximum shear force, stiffness degradation and pinch shrinkage of the shear wall more effectively, while the actual mechanical behavior of shear wall could not be obtained by the modeling method that ignore the shear effect.
