Irregularity of the distribution of masonry infill panels and its effect on the seismic collapse of reinforced concrete buildings

Juan Carlos Vielma, Roberto Aguiar, Carlos Frau, Abel Zambrano

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

On 16 April 2016, an earthquake of Mw 7.8 shook the coast of Ecuador, causing the de-struction of buildings and a significant number of casualties. Following a visit by the authors to the city of Portoviejo during the debris removal and recovery stage, it was noted that several reinforced concrete buildings located on corners had collapsed in the central part of the city. These buildings were characterized by the presence of masonry at the edges of the buildings but not between the two mostly open‐plan facades on the corner for practical reasons. This article reviews the effect of masonry infill panels on the seismic response of reinforced concrete structures. For this, a model that contains the geometric and mechanical characteristics typical of collapsed buildings was gen-erated and subjected to nonlinear analysis, with both static and dynamic increments. The results show the clear influence of the masonry infill panels on the structural response through the torsional behavior that is reflected in the evolution of the floor rotations. Finally, dynamic incremental analysis is used to obtain the collapse fragility curve of the building, and a new damage measure based on floor rotations is proposed.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8691
JournalApplied Sciences (Switzerland)
Volume11
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Collapse fragility curve
  • Damage measure
  • Incremental dynamic analysis
  • Masonry infill panels
  • Torsional behavior

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