Performance of Reinforced Concrete Frame with Masonry Infill Under Dynamic Loads

Infill panels are widely used as interior partitions and external walls in buildings, but they are usually treated as non-structural elements and in a lot of cases their stiffness is not included in the reinforced concrete design. While performing the evaluation of existing reinforced concrete buildings, to know the actual behavior of structure, effect of infill need to be incorporated in seismic evaluation. The masonry infill has been modeled as an equivalent diagonal structural element using Main-stone theory. Pushover analysis has been carried out on bare frame and frame with infill. The result shows that infill, if present in all storeys, gives a significant contribution to the energy dissipation capacity. Seismic performance assessments indicate that, the infill frame has the lowest collapse risk and the bare frame is found to be the most vulnerable to earthquake-induced collapse. The diagonal strut has been modeled using E-tabs software and pushover analysis is performed. The example building is analyzed; the effect of masonry infill in seismic evaluation of bare frame and frame with masonry infill is studied. The results obtained from the analysis are compared in terms of strength and stiffness with bare frame.