The Nonlinear Effect of Infill Walls Stiffness to Prevent Soft Story Collapse of RC Structures

Abstract

Experimental or theoretical tests show that dramatically changes of infill area causes soft story mechanism. “Soft story” mechanism is the most frequent failure mode of reinforced concrete (R.C.) structures. This phenomenon is caused by the fact that the overall shear force applied to the building by an earthquake is higher at the base floor. If the lower story is not originally weakened, it is however there that infill are the most stressed, so that they fail first and create the weak story and finally leads collapse of structures. This kind of collapse was observed many times in Turkey caused by earthquake. The aim of this paper is to show the contribution of infill walls to the building response during earthquake. Different type of configuration of infill walls are modeled and analyzed by the Finite Element Method. These models also have soft story risk. The nonlinear force-displacement behavior is used for structural analysis. El Centro N-S component is used for time-history analysis.