Seismic Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Frame with Different Infills

Abstract

Reinforced concrete frames with masonry infill walls are a common practice in Countries like India, where the region is prone to seismic activity. Generally the Masonry infill walls are treated as nonstructural element in structural analysis and only the contribution of its mass is considered and it’s structural properties like Strength and stiffness is generally not considered. Whereas Shear walls are concrete wall made to resist lateral forces acting on tall buildings. Shear walls are vertical elements of the parallel forces resisting system and the shear walls are considered as a structural element in structural analysis.

The present study investigate the seismic performance of reinforced concrete framed building with bare frame, equivalent diagonal strut, R.C wall and shear wall. The seismic behavior of a 10-storey building investigated using response spectrum analysis. Equivalent diagonal strut methodology is used to represent the behavior of infill walls, whilst the well-known software package ETABS is used for implementing all frame models and performing the analysis.

The results such as maximum displacement, maximum drift, storey shear, base shear and mode shapes for the bare frame as well as the equivalent diagonal strut, R.C wall and shear wall are presented in a comparative way. The results of the study indicate that the interaction between infill walls and frames significantly change the responses of buildings during earthquakes compared to the results of bare frame building model. While comparing base shear, the value drastically decreases for the bare frame coming to the base shear for other models uniformly decreases. Whereas comparing storey drift, the value considerably decreases for the bare frame coming to the storey drift for other models uniformly increases.