Investigation of masonry infill wall effect of reinforced frame buildings

Structural design in masonry requires a clear understanding of the behaviour of the composite unit-mortar material under various stress conditions.The characteristics of brick masonry are influenced by the properties of bricks and mortar. This study has been investigated in two parts. Firstly, this thesis attempts at studying the properties of brick masonry using different bricks of Turkey with various types of mortars. The strength and elastic modulus of brick masonry under uniform concentric vertical loads have been evaluated for strong-brick soft-mortar and soft-brick strong-mortar combinations. Various sizes of prisms and panels have been tested during these experiments to study the size effect and different bonding arrangements. The failure mechanisms of such specimens have been studied. Attempts are also made to derive empirical relationships for masonry strength as a function of brick and mortar strength in the Turkey context.Secondly, effect of nonstructural masonry infill on the earthquakes response of reinforced concrete structures are investigated by considering reinforced concrete with structure different configuration of masonry infills. Different models of infill walls have been analyzed by using a computer program called SAP2000N. For this purpose, different kinds of planar frames were compared under lateral loads by two infill wall models, equivalent diagonal compression strut model and finite element model. The results of analysis were compared for the frames with and without infill walls. It is found that infill walls have significant effect on stiffness, period, lateral displacement, base shear force and structural behavior.