Evaluation of the period and soft story conditions ofreinforced concrete buildings with and without infill walls

Abstract

Since the ground floor of most of the buildings in our country is designed as a shopor ground floor (in the buildings created as a workplace), there is very little infill wallratio on the ground floors due to architectural and functional reasons, and some ofthem do not even exist at all. However, infill walls significantly increase the horizon tal rigidity and strength of the structure, thus causing a decrease in the period valuethat determines the earthquake loads that will affect the structure. However, the infillwall meets the first destructive forces of the earthquake, and during this time, itcracks and absorbs some of the earthquake energy. The structural system elementsof the building (columns and shear walls) start to meet the earthquake forces onlywhen the infill walls are damaged and fail. In this direction, the aim of this study is toinvestigate to what extent the amount of infill wall on the ground floor affects theperiod of the building, and whether there are soft storey irregularities in the buildingaccording to the change in the amount of infill wall on the ground floor. In this study,while there are infill walls on all floors and all axes of buildings of various heights (3,6, 9 and 11 floors), the amount of infill walls in the x and y directions on the groundfloors is reduced to a certain extent, and many models are created until the groundfloor is completely without infill walls. All these models created were analyzed withthe support of the SAP2000 program, and the period values were determined andexamined according to the soft storey problems and compared with the case of theentire building with and without infill walls. In addition, it was examined whetherthe period formulas determined as a result of the studies and taking into account theinfill wall give realistic results for the situation examined in this study.