Investigating of three dimensional infill wall reinforced concrete frame behavior with earthquake simulator

As a general approach, the existing infill walls in a construction are seen as a part of the carrier system, and therefore taken as a weight. The sudden variations of the quantity of the infill walls among the storeys which are not taken into account in the construction design and analysis change the stiffness levels. The stiffness variations create a soft storey irregularity. A building which possess soft storey gets seriously damaged and is subject to collapse in an eartquake. Determining the sudden stiffness changes occur in the building and take the necessary corrective measures to be realistic. In this study, we aimed to determine the shaking table test of a sudden stiffness change impacts will occur between the floor structure with infill and infill panels to determine the nature of the seismic behavior. In the experiments three groups are analyzed as reference, dense stirruped and isolated structures. One-spanning, two storeyed and 1/3 scales of reinforced concrete structures are utilized in all experiment groups. In the first group which is classified as reference structure, the situations which create sudden stiffness variations are studied. In the second and third studies, dense stirruped and isolated structures are held which are recommended to prevent sudden stiffness variations in storeys. In the first experiment all the storeys are without walls; in the second one the first storey is without walls; and in the last experiment all the storeys are bonded with bricks. First of all else, relative displacements under the sway of simulated earthquake force are found in each group. By means of relative displacement, sudden stiffness variations are discovered in lower floor reference structure without walls and it is observed that dense stirruped and isolated structures can tolerate soft storeys. Reference, dense stirruped and isolated structures' stiffness, resistance, displacement and energy dissipation capacities are analyzed in this thesis. Keywords: Soft storey, Infilled frame, Earthquake simulator, Seismic isolators, Displacement capacity, Energy dissipation.