The majority of new and existing building inventories in the Middle East consist of reinforced concrete skeletal structures with outer shells composed of unreinforced masonry infill walls. In the absence of any mandatory seismic design requirements, these buildings will sustain catastrophic damage when exposed to high seismic activity. Investigating the behavior of such infill walls when exposed to ground motion is therefore an important topic. Experimental tests using shake table out-of-plane ground motion of the 1940 El Centro earthquake displacement are conducted on 3:10 scaled specimens of a single story reinforced concrete frame with a masonry infill wall in between. The test specimens are constructed with the same materials and construction practices commonly used in the region. Displacements and strains are compared with a finite element model of the frame. Moreover, the observed overall behavior of the infill is compared to that of the computer model. The recorded strains in the mortar joints exceeded cracking limits, whereas the overall stability of the wall in out-of-plane bending was not compromised. Recommendations on the use of these structural elements are formulated.
Analysis of the out-of-plane capacity of unreinforced masonry infill walls
