scholarly journals Seismic performance evaluation and risk assessment of typical reinforced concrete frame buildings with masonry infill and conventional vertical extension in Nepal

Author(s):  
Sujan Pradhan ◽  
Yuebing Li ◽  
Yasushi Sanada

AbstractMany reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings in Nepal were significantly damaged by the 7.8 magnitude (Mw) earthquake in Nepal on April 25, 2015. To contribute to mitigate future earthquake disasters, the current study focuses on two specific characteristics of residential RC frame buildings in the capital city of Nepal, Kathmandu: the application of brick masonry infill to exterior and partition walls, and the conventional vertical extension of building stories different from the design. Although these factors are likely to significantly affect the seismic performance, their effects are frequently neglected in practical design and construction management in developing countries. Hence, the main objective of this research is to investigate and clarify the seismic performance of RC frame buildings considering the above factors through experimental and numerical investigations. The present paper (1) briefly introduces the characteristics of a typical residential RC frame building in Kathmandu, (2) illustrates the numerical modeling parametrically considering three different contributions of brick masonry infill walls and (3) investigates the seismic performance of the RC frame building considering the effects of the infill wall modeling and the vertical extension through numerical analyses. Consequently, it was found that the consideration of the in-plane stiffness and strength of the infill walls resulted in both positive and negative contributions to the seismic performance of low-rise (up to three stories) and medium-rise (more than three stories) buildings respectively, quantitatively clarifying significant effects of the presence of infill and the vertical extension. These findings contribute to provide realistic solutions to upgrade the seismic performance by utilizing or removing the brick masonry infill walls or by managing the building stories to mitigate future earthquake disasters on typical RC frame buildings not only in Nepal but also in other countries with similar backgrounds.

2021 ◽  
pp. 875529302098801
Author(s):  
Orlando Arroyo ◽  
Abbie Liel ◽  
Sergio Gutiérrez

Reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings are a widely used structural system around the world. These buildings are customarily designed through standard code-based procedures, which are well-suited to the workflow of design offices. However, these procedures typically do not aim for or achieve seismic performance higher than code minimum objectives. This article proposes a practical design method that improves the seismic performance of bare RC frame buildings, using only information available from elastic structural analysis conducted in standard code-based design. Four buildings were designed using the proposed method and the prescriptive approach of design codes, and their seismic performance is evaluated using three-dimensional nonlinear (fiber) models. The findings show that the seismic performance is improved with the proposed method, with reductions in the collapse fragility, higher deformation capacity, and greater overstrength. Furthermore, an economic analysis for a six-story building shows that these improvements come with only a 2% increase in the material bill, suggesting that the proposed method is compatible with current project budgets as well as design workflow. The authors also provide mathematical justification of the method.


2012 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 133-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandra Fiore ◽  
Adriana Netti ◽  
Pietro Monaco

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 13-48
Author(s):  
Marko Marinković ◽  
Santiago Calvinisti ◽  
Christoph Butenweg

Reinforced concrete (RC) buildings with masonry infill walls are widely used in many countries all over the world. Although infills are considered as non-structural elements, they significantly change dynamic characteristics of RC frame structures during earthquake excitation. Recently, significant effort was spent on studying decoupled infills, which are isolated from the surrounding frame usually by adding a gap between frame and infill. In this case, the frame deformation does not activate infill wall, thus infills are not influencing the behaviour of the frame. This paper presents the results of the investigation of the behaviour of RC frame buildings with the INODIS system that decouples masonry infills from the surrounding frame. Effect of masonry infill decoupling was investigated first on the one-bay one-storey frame. This was used as a base for parametric study on the frames with more bays and storeys, as well as on the building level. Change of stiffness and dynamic characteristics was analysed as well as response under earthquake loading. Comparison with the bare frame and traditionally infilled frame was performed. The results show that behaviour of the decoupled infilled frames is similar to the bare frame, whereas behaviour of frames with traditional infills is significantly different and demands complex numerical models. This means that if adequate decoupling is applied, design of infilled frame buildings can be significantly simplified.


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