RESEARCH ARTICLE
Experimental Investigation of Masonry Infilled R/C Frames
K.C. Stylianidis*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 194
Last Page: 212
Publisher ID: TOBCTJ-6-194
DOI: 10.2174/1874836801206010194
Article History:
Received Date: 1/01/2012Revision Received Date: 5/05/2012
Acceptance Date: 8/05/2012
Electronic publication date: 31/10/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Although it is well documented that infills significantly affect the dynamic characteristics and the seismic response of the bare basic structural system, codes are reluctant to encourage consideration of infills as main structural elements, mainly due to structural uncertainties and computational complexities. Part of the uncertainties are due to the very many parameters affecting the behavior of the system, such as infill materials, reinforcing of infills, connection to the surrounding frame, geometry, relative stiffness and strength, local construction techniques etc. In the present paper three successive experimental programs, conducted at the R/C and Masonry Structures Laboratory of the Aristotle University, are described, commented and discussed. All of them refer to single-storey one-bay 1:3 scale R/C moment resisting frames. The first program consisted of 18 specimens, 2 bare and 16 unreinforced masonry (URM) infilled. The second program was an extension and a supplement of the previous one. It consisted of 20 more specimens, 6 bare and 14 URM infilled. The third program was directed towards the investigation of quick and low cost strengthening methods of R/C frames damaged by earthquakes, using several infill techniques. For this purpose 10 of the damaged specimens of the first program were repaired and strengthened.