Analyzing the Effect of Infill Walls on a RC Structure

Abstract

In reinforced concrete buildings, the openings between frames are generally filled by using infill material and by plastering the sides. This application is called infill wall, and it is widely acknowledged as a non-structural element. Therefore, infill walls are often designed assuming that they do not have any effect on the structure other than their weight. However, several experimental and theoretical studies have documented that infill walls, in fact, affect the behavior of a structure under vertical and horizontal loads along with its dynamic characteristics such as its stiffness, period and damping. This study aims to investigate the effect of infill walls on the earthquake performance of a selected building. The structure with and without infill walls has been modelled in SAP2000 structural analysis software and the pushover analysis has been carried out. The infill walls have been modelled as commonly used diagonal bracing without any tensile capacity, which are compatible to their actual behavior. As a result of the comparison of the analyses, infill walls have been found to increase the earthquake performance of the structure, limit the displacement and contribute to the base shear force.