SEISMIC EVALUATION OF RC FRAMED BUILDINGS WITH INFLUENCE OF MASONRY INFILL PANEL

Md Irfanullah, Md Irshad Ali, Vishwanath. B .Patil

Abstract: RC framed buildings are generally designed without considering the structural action of masonry infill walls present. These walls are widely used as partitions and considered as non-structural elements. But they affect both the structural and non-structural performance of the RC buildings during earthquakes. RC framed building with open first storey is known as soft storey, which performs poorly during earthquakes. A similar soft storey effect can also appear below plinth, when the ground material has removed during excavation and refilled later. To observe the effect of masonry infill panel, it is modeled as an equivalent diagonal strut. In order to study these six RC framed buildings with brick masonry infill were designed for the same seismic hazard. In the present paper an investigation has been made to study the behavior of RC frames with various arrangement of infill when subjected to earthquake loading. The results of bare frame, frame with infill, soft ground floor, soft basement and infill in swastika pattern in ground floor are compared and conclusions are made. It is observed that, providing infill below plinth and in swastika pattern in the ground floor improves earthquake resistant behavior of the structure when compared to soft basement.

Keywords: masonry infill panel, bare frame, soft basement, diagonal strut

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2013.0213006