• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.13-22
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• 2010

Masonry infill walls are frequently used as interior partitions and exterior walls in low- or middle- rise RC buildings. In the design and assessment of buildings, the infill walls are usually treated as non-structural elements and they are ignored in analytical models because they are assumed to be beneficial to the structural responses. Therefore, their influences on the structural response are ignored. In the case of buildings constructed in the USA in highly seismic regions, infill walls have a lower strength and stiffness than the boundary frames or they are separated from the boundary frames. Thus, the previously mentioned assumptions may be reasonable. However, these systems are not usually employed in most other countries. Therefore, the differences in the seismic behaviors of RC buildings with/without masonry infill walls, which are ignored in structural design, need to be investigated. In this study, structural analyses were performed for a masonry infilled low-rise RC moment-resisting frame. The infill walls were modeled as equivalent diagonal struts. The seismic behaviors of the RC moment-resisting frame with/without masonry infill walls were evaluated. From the analytical results, masonry infill walls can increase the global strength and stiffness of a structure. Consequently, the interstory drift ratio will decrease but seismic forces applied to the structure will increase more than the design seismic load because the natural period of the structure decreases. Partial damage of the infill walls by the floor causes vertical irregularity of the strength and stiffness.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.409-436
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• 2014

Although it is widely accepted that the interaction -between masonry infill and structural members significantly affects the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) frames, this interaction is generally neglected in current design-oriented seismic analyses of structures. Moreover, the role of masonry infill is expected to be even more relevant in the case of existing frames designed only for gravitational loads, as infill walls can significantly modify both lateral strength and stiffness. However, the additional contribution to both strength and stiffness is often coupled to a modification of the global collapse mechanisms possibly resulting in brittle failure modes, generally related to irregular distributions of masonry walls throughout the frame. As a matter of principle, accurate modelling of masonry infill should be at least carried out by adopting nonlinear 2D elements. However, several practice-oriented proposals are currently available for modelling masonry infill through equivalent (nonlinear) strut elements. The present paper firstly outlines some of the well-established models currently available in the scientific literature for modelling infill panels in seismic analyses of RC frames. Then, a parametric analysis is carried out in order to demonstrate the consequences of considering such models in nonlinear static and dynamic analyses of existing RC structures. Two bay-frames with two-, three- and four-storeys are considered for performing nonlinear analyses aimed at investigating some critical aspects of modelling masonry infill and their effects on the structural response. Particularly, sensitivity analyses about specific parameters involved in the definition of the equivalent strut models, such as the constitutive force-displacement law of the panel, are proposed.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.355-362
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• 2009

Many of residential buildings, which have pilotis in lower stories to meet the architectural needs, are recently constructed in Korea. Usually, infill walls located in the upper stories of these buildings may cause a soft first story, which is very weak from the earthquake resistance. In the design of the buildings, the infill walls of upper stories are usually considered as non-structural elements and thus they are not included in the analytical model. However, the infill walls may affect the seismic behavior of the residential buildings. Therefore, the differences in seismic behaviors of RC buildings with and without masonry infill walls are required to be investigated. In this study, seismic fragility analyses were performed for masonry infilled low-rise RC moment-resisting frames. And seismic behaviors of RC moment-resisting frame with/without masonry infill walls were evaluated. Two types of structural system with the same frame and different allocation of infill walls are used to evaluate the influence of masonry infill walls on seismic behavior of RC moment-resisting frames. The infill walls were modeled as bi-equivalent diagonal struts. The fragility analyses show that the seismic performance of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story is below the desirable building seismic performance level recommended by current seismic codes, indicating high vulnerability of RC moment-resisting frames with soft story.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.4
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• pp.395-409
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• 2022

The presence of infill generally neglected in design despite the fact that infill contribution significantly increase the lateral stiffness and strength of the reinforced concrete frame structure. Several experimental studies and computational models have been proposed to capture the rational response of infill-frame interaction at global level. However, limited studies are available on explicit finite element modelling to study the local behavior due to high computation and convergence issues in numerical modelling. In the current study, the computational modelling of RC frames is done with various configurations of infill masonry in terms of types of blocks, lateral loading and reinforcement detailing employed with material nonlinearities, interface contact issues and bond-slip phenomenon particularly near the beam-column joints. To this end, extensive computational modelling of five variant characteristics test specimens extracted from the detailed experimental program available in literature and process through nonlinear static analysis in FEM code, ATENA generally used to capture the nonlinear response of reinforced concrete structures. Results are presented in terms of damage patterns and capacity curves by employing the finest possible detail provided in the experimental program. Comparative analysis shows that good correlation amongst the experimental and numerical simulated results both in terms of capacity and crack patterns.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.999-1028
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• 2015

Despite the fact that the fundamental period appears to be one of the most critical parameters for the seismic design of structures according to the modal superposition method, the so far available in the literature proposals for its estimation are often conflicting with each other making their use uncertain. Furthermore, the majority of these proposals do not take into account the presence of infills walls into the structure despite the fact that infill walls increase the stiffness and mass of structure leading to significant changes in the fundamental period numerical value. Toward this end, this paper presents a detailed and indepth analytical investigation on the parameters that affect the fundamental period of reinforce concrete structure. The calculated values of the fundamental period are compared against those obtained from the seismic code and equations proposed by various researchers in the literature. From the analysis of the results it has been found that the number of storeys, the span length, the stiffness of the infill wall panels, the location of the soft storeys and the soil type are crucial parameters that influence the fundamental period of RC buildings.