Study On Influence Of Infilled Walls On Seismic Performance Of RC Frame Structures

It is widespread for buildings using filler walls for division and thermalinsulation in RC frame structures. Masonry filler walls in framed structures have beenlong known to affect strength, stiffness, and ductility of the composite structure. Inseismic areas, ignoring the composite action is not always on the safe side, since theinteraction between the wall and the frame under lateral loads dramatically changesthe stiffness and the dynamic characteristics of the composite structure, and hence, itsresponse to seismic loads. So changes about strain capacity of the structure wouldhappen between the infilled frames and the RC frames without filler walls because ofthe reaction between filler walls and frames under the horizontal and vertical loads. Aconclusion that some local failure which is not good for antiseismic of thecomponents in the frame or even collapse of the whole structure would appear owingto the influence from the filler walls has been drawn from the investigation of variousof earthquake damage instances. In an attempt to determine the seismic vulnerabilityof this type of structure, some research works has been carried out as follows:Firstly, by Analyzing and summarizing some earthquake damage instances, therestraint effect from the filler walls in the earthquake and the main topic failure modeof the frames have been elaborated systematically. At the same time, the mainresearch finding about the filler walls is also outlined.Secondly, according to the main failure mode of the wall, a reasonableassessment of some kinds of equivalent models about the filler wall. And basing onthe previous the characteristics of the failure about the filler wall and the equivalentmodels of the filler wall, this study presents a modified equivalent model, which hasbeen proved to have good correlations with the experimental results.Thirdly, summarize different methods about calculating the natural period of theinfilled frame considering the affect from the filler walls in the structure. Then, thethesis focuses on analysis the natural period of the structure affected by the number,opening and the distribution of the filler walls by modeling the frame with themodified equivalent model.At last, do some research about the response of a frame to seismic loads, considering the effect from weak layer causing by the uneven distribution of fillerwalls along the vertical direction by using the software: ANSYS.