Full-scaled experimental and numerical investigation on the contribution of masonry infill walls into dynamic behavior of RC buildings

Abstract

The contribution of masonry infill walls (MIW) to the dynamic behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is investigated in this study. An existing non-symmetrical, six-story reinforced concrete building has been used as a test specimen. Dynamic characteristics of the building have been determined by the ambient vibration survey (AVS) first. Then, the masonry infill walls on its ground floor were completely demolished, and the obtained new form of the building was studied by AVS. Later on, two forms of the building were modeled to visualize its behavior under ambient conditions, and the dynamic characteristics of the building have been determined numerically. The attained experimental and numerical results for both forms of the building were compared, and the constructed numerical models of the building were calibrated by an interactive tuning algorithm defined according to the specific dynamic features of the building. As the last numerical analysis, all MIW were removed from the verified numerical model of the building and the dynamic analysis was repeated. The main goal of the study was accomplished by comparing the experimentally and numerically obtained dynamic results on the basis of dominant frequencies, mode shapes, torsional behavior, and soft story mechanism.