Abstract
Introduction:Unreinforced Masonry infill walls (URM) are commonly used in the Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed structures as interiors and exteriors partition walls. Although they usually are not considered in the structural analysis and design, their influence on the seismic performance of the framed structures is significant. A common practice in the modern and old RC buildings is to remove the URM walls in the lower stories for commercial reasons; garages, storages, shopsetc.Methods:In the present work, the effect of the URM walls on seismic performance of the RC framed structure will be studied. For that, three groups of 2-D three-bay framed structures, which are fully and partially infilled with the URM walls, will be studied. These groups are classified as three stories, six stories, and nine stories RC framed structures representing low, medium and, high rise buildings; respectively. In each group, different infill panels' configuration will be studied in order to simulate the cases of ignoring or considering the stiffness and strength of the URM. Double-strut nonlinear cyclic model for masonry panels has been utilized in order to account for the structural action of the URM walls. Pushover analysis is adopted for the evaluation of the seismic response of the frames considering the material inelasticity and the geometric nonlinearity in the analysis.Results and Conclusion:Some selected numerical simulation results in terms of base shear forces, lateral deflections, and inter-story drift ratios are obtained for all the considered configurations and presented in comparative way. The regular distribution of the infill walls can improve the framed structure performance. However, omitting the infill from the ground story leads to soft story phenomena as the columns in this story are more vulnerable due to the shear forces acting on them.
Highlights
Unreinforced Masonry infill walls (URM) are commonly used in the Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed structures as interiors and exteriors partition walls
The resulting capacity curves of the HRB, MRB, and LRB with and without the infill panels are presented in Figs. (12, 14, and 16) where the x-axis represents the roof drift ratio (The ratio of the roof displacement to the total height (Δ/H) (while the y-axis represents the ratio of the base shear to the total weight (P/W)
The resulting P - Δ effect may lead to instability of the building structure and in turn the structure collapses provided that the lateral deflections due to the existence of soft story become too large
Summary
Unreinforced Masonry infill walls (URM) are commonly used in the Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed structures as interiors and exteriors partition walls. They usually are not considered in the structural analysis and design, their influence on the seismic performance of the framed structures is significant. The simulation of such non-structural infill walls is a tedious and complicated issue and requires larger solving time and complex computational techniques. They may interact with the surrounding frame when the structure is subjected to lateral loads induced by earthquake ground motions.
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