Seismic Performance and Reliability Evaluation of Ductile RC Frame Structures with Infills

Abstract

Ductile RC frames are often considered to have superior seismic performance even with infills. However, the seismic performance of this type of structure needs to be reassessed considering the additional shear requirements produced by the infills-column interaction and the increased seismic hazard due to the impact of infills on the vibration period of the structure. This paper presents a performance-based earthquake engineering framework aimed at the assessment of the comprehensive seismic performance of ductile RC frames with infills. A series of common configurations are considered in the analysis: bare frame (BF), upper-infilled frame (UIF), all-infilled frame (AIF), and corresponding stirrup-reduction frames with both infills-induced shear failure behavior of column and influence of structural vibration period considered. The results show that infills changed the failure modes and dynamic characteristics of ductile structures and shear failure occurs in all-infilled frame columns. Even though the all-infilled frame meets the shear requirement, its collapse probability is higher than the bare frame due to the high seismic hazard caused by a shorter vibration period.