SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF MASONRY PARTIALLY INFILLED RC FRAME BASED ON NUMERICAL ANALYSIS APPLYING STRUT MODEL

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a numerical study on reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures with partial masonry infill, conducted using the pushover method in the SeismoStruct program to evaluate their seismic performance. Various diagonal strut models were employed to analyze the strut width and the contact length between the column and infill, which were used in the pushover analysis to represent the masonry infill element. The study investigated three RC frame models: one with full masonry infill and two with partial masonry infills. The numerical results were validated against experimental findings, which showed that the lateral strength, stiffness, and ductility of the structural models were reasonably consistent between the numerical and experimental data. Both sets of results indicated that the lateral strength of the RC frame with full masonry infill decreased by approximately 29% and 46% when compared to frames with three-quarter and half-height infills, respectively. Partial masonry infill was also found to alter the crack patterns and failure mechanisms of boundary columns. In RC frames with partial infills, the walled portions of the columns become stiffer, leading to increased cracking and short-column damage. These findings demonstrate that the diagonal strut approach is effective for evaluating the seismic performance of RC frames with partial masonry infill.