Behaviour Of Infill Panels Under Lateral Load

Abstract

Building Frame with masonry infalls walls subjected to lateral loads has been an area of interest among researcher. Many researchers have worked in the said area and desired various advantageous features of it and also reported few deficiencies. Infall walls in a frame stifens the Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame which otherwise is relatively exible. However, masonry infalls being brittle in nature undergoes cracking under lateral load and thus provide limited strength to RC frame. At present, trends to build slender and exible structure preliminary due to space constraint. In order to decrease dead load on structural system various other forms of infall walls are practised for example, Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Blocks (AAC), Fly Ash Bricks being light weight. Behaviour of RC frame with infall walls made up of AAC and Fly Ash Bricks has not been studied. It is important to study behaviour of such infall walls under lateral load since slender and exible structures are mostly sensitive to lateral load. The present work mainly deals with the study carried out to understand the be- haviour of infall RC frame with diferent materials viz. Red Bricks, (AAC) blocks and Fly-Ash Bricks under lateral load. Experiment has been conducted on total 4 specimens that are subjected to lateral load applied through indigenously developed mechanism. It also includes estimation of mechanical properties of different infall materials, experimentally. PRISM Tests are carried out for three diferent infall ma- terials as mentioned earlier. The behaviour of RC infall panel is derived in terms of load carrying capacity of the panels, displacement capacity of panels and failure patterns. It has been found that all RC panels with infill walls undergo less lateral displace- ment and higher lateral load as compared to RC frame without infill walls. Among RC frames with different infill materials, RC panel with Red Brick infill shows higher stifiness relative to other RC panels with infills walls. It is observed that RC panel with Red Brick infills shows higher load carrying capacity as compared to other RC panels. An RC panels with Red Brick infalls undergoes least lateral displacement, while RC panels with Fly Ash Brick shows higher ductility.