The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Studies on effects of infills in seismic resistant R/C construction

Brokken, Steven T.; Bertero, Vitelmo V.

UCB/EERC-81/12, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1981-10, 191 pages (530/B77/1981)

This report summarizes experimental and analytical studies of the quantitative effects of infills on the seismic performance of buildings. The implications of these effects regarding the design of new buildings and retrofitting of existing reinforced concrete frame structures are evaluated. The first part of the report concerns the infill problem and an experimental investigation conducted to study the effects of infill panels on seismic response of reinforced concrete frames. This investigation consisted of a series of quasistatic cyclic and monotonic load tests on 1/3-scale models of the lower 3-1/2 stories of an 11-story, three-bay reinforced concrete frame infilled in the outer two bays. The reinforced concrete moment frame was designed for high rotational ductility and resistance to degradation under reversed cyclic shear loads. The analytical studies are described in the second portion of the report.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-81-12.pdf (55 MB)