A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Isolation of infill walls as solution for both masonry infills and RC structures
Reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings with masonry infill wall are very common structural type all around the world, because of several reasons. First they are easy and fast to construct and second masonry infills provide good thermal insulation and fire resistance. However, seismic behaviour of this system is poor. Damage of RC frames with infills is a dominant type of failure in every medium to strong earthquake. In-plane (IP) cracking and out-of-plane (OOP) failure of infills are usually so severe that it is not economical to repair them. As a consequence, repair costs are high and recovery lasts longer. Furthermore, collapse of infills in OOP direction endangers people around the building and along the evacuation routes. During the earthquake, RC frame deforms and interacts with stiff infill walls. This leads to the change in dynamic characteristics of the frame building and increases the stresses in the frame elements. Traditionally, infill/frame connection is done using mortar that gets easily damaged even under low levels of drift and thus infill/frame contact is lost. This results in loss of boundary condition for the infill in OOP direction. After years of experience in earthquakes and from research, it can be simply concluded that stiff connection between infill and frame is not adequate. This paper presents the decoupling system that isolates the infill wall from the RC frame. It is made of recycled rubber strips that are placed between frame and infill. Comprehensive experimental campaign has been conducted in order to investigate the functionality of the decoupling system. Separate and combined IP and OOP tests have been carried out and the results show that first cracks in infills occur after 2% of drift. Study shows that this innovative solution is able to prevent the damage in masonry infills and simplify the seismic design.
Isolation of infill walls as solution for both masonry infills and RC structures
Reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings with masonry infill wall are very common structural type all around the world, because of several reasons. First they are easy and fast to construct and second masonry infills provide good thermal insulation and fire resistance. However, seismic behaviour of this system is poor. Damage of RC frames with infills is a dominant type of failure in every medium to strong earthquake. In-plane (IP) cracking and out-of-plane (OOP) failure of infills are usually so severe that it is not economical to repair them. As a consequence, repair costs are high and recovery lasts longer. Furthermore, collapse of infills in OOP direction endangers people around the building and along the evacuation routes. During the earthquake, RC frame deforms and interacts with stiff infill walls. This leads to the change in dynamic characteristics of the frame building and increases the stresses in the frame elements. Traditionally, infill/frame connection is done using mortar that gets easily damaged even under low levels of drift and thus infill/frame contact is lost. This results in loss of boundary condition for the infill in OOP direction. After years of experience in earthquakes and from research, it can be simply concluded that stiff connection between infill and frame is not adequate. This paper presents the decoupling system that isolates the infill wall from the RC frame. It is made of recycled rubber strips that are placed between frame and infill. Comprehensive experimental campaign has been conducted in order to investigate the functionality of the decoupling system. Separate and combined IP and OOP tests have been carried out and the results show that first cracks in infills occur after 2% of drift. Study shows that this innovative solution is able to prevent the damage in masonry infills and simplify the seismic design.
Isolation of infill walls as solution for both masonry infills and RC structures
Marinkovic, Marko (author) / Butenweg, Christoph (Prof. Dr.-Ing.) (author) / Milijas, Aleksa (author) / Gams, Matija (author)
2025-02-14
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
DDC:
000
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