Abstract
Masonry infill walls are commonly used in the frames of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings around the world. The seismic performance of these buildings is strongly affected by the presence of the infill walls and partitions, as shown by the post-earthquake damage in many cases. The effect of these components is particularly important for RC frame constructions underdesigned for seismic actions that usually are characterized by deformable frames magnifying the contribution of the infill walls to the seismic response. Also the flexibility of the floors could be influenced by the collaboration of the infill walls to the transversal stiffness of the building. The paper addresses the seismic assessment of a typical infilled RC frame building designed only for gravity loads in the 1960s in the Southern of Italy that currently is a high-seismic zone. The structural identification of the building based on ambient vibration test has been already done pointing out the significant role of infill walls and partitions through the updating of the numerical model. Based on the results of the calibrated model, the effect of the floor flexibility on the dynamic behavior of the structure is discussed, and the seismic capacity at life safety limit state (LSLS) is assessed by means of the linear dynamic analyses. The effects of the infill walls on the seismic performance of the building are discussed in detail considering a strengthening solution that involves the infill panels as masonry walls cut from the RC columns to avoid the local interaction but strengthened by composite grids in mortar matrix (FRCM).
Highlights
The reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures provided with masonry infill walls are the most common type of structures used for multistory constructions in many countries
The existing building proposed as case study was selected because it has a typical RC frame structure designed only for gravitational loads, and it is widespread in Italy
The model calibrated by the experimental results is used for studying the effect of the infill walls on the flexibility of the floor diaphragm, evaluating the seismic performance of the building by a linear dynamic analysis, with and without the introduction of the infill walls
Summary
The RC (reinforced concrete) frame structures provided with masonry infill walls are the most common type of structures used for multistory constructions in many countries. In this case, it is worth to underline how unlike the case of the bare frame, the modeling of the floor with its finite stiffness has a greater influence on the frequency values that undergo significant reductions of about 6, 8, and 16% passing from an equivalent thickness equal to 9, 4, and 1 cm, respectively. The PGAC/PGAD ratio could be obtained by a more refined design process of the intervention but this is out of the scope of the paper that is aimed to evaluate the possible contribution of the infill walls
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