Experimental and numerical investigation of new flexible connection elements between infill walls-RC frames

Abstract

Lateral stiffness provided by infill walls to the building structures is generally neglected in designs. Infill walls, which are only included in the calculations as dead loads, significantly affect the lateral resistance, stiffness and energy dissipation of the frames. Both the studies in the literature and the infill wall dam-ages observed after the earthquake support the existence of these unforeseen effects in the design. It is an important problem to reflect the infill wall effects to the site application as designed. In this study, the solution to isolate the infill walls from the load-carrying frames is adopted. Three different flexible con-nection elements designed in this context were examined experimentally and numerically, their in-plane behavior was compared with bare and traditionally infilled frames. As a result of the study, it was observed that the frames with flexible connections behaved close to the bare frame in the initial drifts, unlike the fully infilled frame behavior, which significantly lost its lateral resistance in the initial drifts, and continued its lateral resistance without any damage until further drifts. It is thought that the flexible connections will be an important development in terms of compatibility of design and site applications.