Pushover Analysis on Infill Effects on the Failure Pattern of Reinforced Concrete Frames

• Main Authors: Ning Ning, Dehu Yu, Chunwei Zhang, Shan Jiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2017-04-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: structural seismic design; infill walls; reinforced concrete (RC) frames; failure pattern; strong column-weak beam; strong shear-weak bending
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/7/4/428

This paper presents a pushover analysis using ABAQUS (Dassault Company, Providence, Rhodes Island, USA) for spatial reinforced concrete (RC) frames. The main purpose is to study the effect of the infills on failure patterns of the RC frames. The Finite Element Method (FEM) model considered an RC frame with fulfilled infills, half-filled infills, and without infills. Column moment, the effective width of the cast in situ slab, and the required ratio of column to beam strength are calculated and analyzed. Research findings indicate that the location of the inflection point varied because of the effect of infills. Some of the calculated values of column moments are larger than those values according to the design code. The effective slab width and the required ratio of column to beam strength are found to be reduced due to the infill effects. The actual effective width of the slab should be considered in the required ratio of column to beam strength. Reasonable advice is proposed and discussed for design purposes.