Out of Plane Seismic Response of In fillbrick Masonry Wall

Abstract

Significance of RC bandsin preventing failure of infill wall especially in out of planedirection was investigated. Also the change on magnitude of various stresscomponents on bounding RC frames due to presence of RC bands was examined.Two types of models viz. the infill walls with and without RC bandswere preparedand studied numerically to get comparative results.Micro modeling i.e. eight noddedsolid element for bricks,non-linear link elements for mortarand solid elements withsufficient subdivisions for bounding RC framewas carried out for onefocused infillpanel and macro modeling i.e. equivalent diagonal strut modeling for infill walls andsingle solid element for bounding RC frames was carried out for the infill wallsexcept the focusedinfillpanel.Non linear direct integration time history analysis wascarried out for the both types of models.Only the output results of focused infill panelwas studied for both types of models. It was found that the presence of RC bands reduces the tendency of failure of infillwall especially in out ofplane direction.It was concluded by studying the stresses onbricks, displacement of bricks and stresses on mortar. The probable crack propagationwas plotted after studying the stresses on mortar determined from forces on linkelements. Sufficient crackswere seen on wall withoutRCbands and fewer crackswere seen on walls withRCbands.Themagnitude ofmaximum stresses on boundingframes i.e. beamsand columnswere found more in model without RC bands than inmodel with RC bands. But in model withRCbands, the stresses on the column atband column junction were significantly large in comparisonwith thestresses on thecolumn at same location in model without RC bands.Hence except the stresses onband column junction overall responses for the model with RC bandswere less inmagnitude in comparison to the model without RC bands and therefore the provisionof RC bands on infill wall was found beneficial if due care is given at band columnjunction.