Seismic Performance of the Reinforced Concrete Frame Structures with Infilled Walls of Different Configuration

Abstract

Using the three-strut model, five types of frame structures, i.e., without infilled walls, with full infilled walls, without bottom-storey infilled walls, without middle-storey infilled walls and without top-storey infilled walls, were studied. The mode analysis and nonlinear time-history analysis were carried out on each model. In order to investigate the effects of infilled walls with different configurations on the seismic behavior of reinforced concrete frame structures, the structural periods, the ratio of Tt to T1 and the maximum interstorey drifts were analyzed. The results indicate that the infilled walls enhance the lateral stiffness of frames, and the configuration of infilled walls has little influence on the calculation of structural periods. It also shows that the weaker storey is formed due to the unreasonable layout of infilled walls, thus leading to the collapse of the whole structures under the seismic action.