Reinforced masonry shear walls, like unreinforced ones, are relatively easy to design by either strength or allowable-stress approaches. Although shear capacities per unit area is small, the available area is large.
With either strength or allowable-stress approaches, it is rarely necessary to use shear reinforcement. In this sense, the best shear design strategy for shear walls is like that for shear design of beams use enough cross-sectional area to eliminate the need for shear reinforcement. Seismic requirements may still dictate some shear reinforcement, however.
