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Experimental observations on the in-plane behaviour of masonry wall infilled RC frames; focusing on deformation limits and backbone curve

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Abstract

The ratio of frame strength and stiffness to masonry infill are major parameters that influence the seismic capacity of masonry infill. The influence of such parameters to seismic capacity in terms of strength, stiffness and deformation has significant variations between different design codes and past literature on the topic. This study focused on the in-plane behaviour of unreinforced masonry infill walls installed in reinforced concrete (RC) frames with different strengths. In the first part of this study, two ½ scale specimens with different RC frames and identical masonry infill walls were tested using a static cyclic loading protocol. The main objective was investigating the influence of changing frame strength to seismic capacity in terms of: strength, stiffness and deformation. Results of the presented experiment showed that as the ratio of frame shear strength to masonry shear strength increased, there was great improvement of the masonry infill walls in terms of strength and avoidance of sudden brittle behaviour of the masonry infill. However, varying frame strength did not significantly influence the initial stiffness and story drift at maximum strength. In the second part of this study, an investigation was conducted on the deformation limits of masonry infilled RC frames and the influence of various parameters, based on data collected from many recent experimental tests. Based on these experimental results, the deformation limits of masonry infill were found to be directly proportional to both the compressive prism strength of the masonry infill and the ratio of shear strength of frame to that of the masonry infill. The influence of aspect ratio showed large variation and it is difficult to conclude its level of influence on deformation. A simplified procedure based on experimental data was proposed that can estimate the backbone curve and gave good estimation of the post-peak lateral strength degradation slope based on the ratio of frame strength with simple hand calculation. Such a method is useful in the preliminary design process to help practicing engineers understand the general behaviour expected by infilled RC frames.

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Abbreviations

Β :

Ratio of the boundary frame lateral strength to masonry infill shear strength

V f :

Boundary frame lateral strength

V inf :

Masonry infill lateral strength

f c :

Compressive strength of concrete

f m :

Prism compressive strength of masonry infill

t inf :

Infill panel thickness

l inf :

Infill panel length

M u :

Flexural yield moment of the column or beam

V max :

Maximum lateral load of the overall structure (masonry infill and frame)

h o :

Clear height of column

W ef :

Equivalent strut width

E w , E c :

Young’s modulus of the infill wall and the concrete

H inf , H :

Height of infill wall and the story height

θ :

Arctan (Hinf/Linf) (the inclination of the diagonal strut)

I c , I b :

Moment of inertia of the column and of the beam

f m90 :

Prism compressive strength of masonry in horizontal direction

μ :

Coefficient of sliding friction

d m :

Diagonal length of infill panel

h, l :

Height and length of frame

R crack :

Story drift angle at the cracking point

R max :

Story drift angle at maximum strength

R u :

Story drift angle at the strength degradation point is set to be 80% of the maximum strength

K f :

Initial stiffness of frame

K m :

Initial stiffness of masonry infill

K o :

Initial stiffness of whole system (masonry infill and RC frame)

ε peak :

Masonry prims compression strain at maximum compression stress

δ max :

Lateral displacement at maximum lateral load

V res :

The residual strength of RC frame and masonry infill

R res :

The story drift at point of V res

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Acknowledgements

The study presented in this article was sponsored by the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) project funded by JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) for Bangladesh, 2015 project headed by Professor Nakano Yoshiaki, University of Tokyo and it’s gratefully acknowledged. Opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of the SATREPS project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Engineering, Department of Architectural and Building Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Hamood Alwashali, Yuta Torihata, Kiwoong Jin & Masaki Maeda

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  1. Hamood Alwashali
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  2. Yuta Torihata
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  3. Kiwoong Jin
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  4. Masaki Maeda
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Correspondence to Kiwoong Jin.

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Alwashali, H., Torihata, Y., Jin, K. et al. Experimental observations on the in-plane behaviour of masonry wall infilled RC frames; focusing on deformation limits and backbone curve. Bull Earthquake Eng 16, 1373–1397 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-017-0248-x

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