Behavior of Frames with Infill

& Bracing under Lateral Load

Mohammed Ali Boodihal
II ME Structural Engineering
Under the Guidance of
Dr. B P Annapoorna
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
UVCE

Usual Design

Failures

FAILURE

SOFT-STOREY COLLAPSE
MECHANISM

Frames
Reinforced Concrete (RC) frame
buildings are the most common
type of constructions in urban
India, which are subjected to
several types of forces during
their lifetime, such as static
forces due to dead and live
loads and dynamic forces due
to wind and earthquakes.

FRAMES

BARE FRAME

BRACED FRAME

INFILL FRAME

Infill
Infill are often used to fill the void
between the vertical and horizontal
resisting elements of the building frames.
Masonry infill are normally considered
as non-structural elements and their
stiffness contributions are generally
ignored in practice.
But field evidence has shown that
continuous infill walls can help reduce
the vulnerability of RC Structures

Types of Infill

Behaviour
Infill alters the behavior of building from predominantly
frame action to predominantly truss action

Behavior

Infill walls have a very high initial lateral stiffness and low de-formability
Thus introduction of infill in RC frames changes the lateral-load transfer
mechanism of the structure from predominant frame action to predominant
truss action which is responsible to reduce lateral deflections and bending
moments in the frame, there by decreasing the probability of collapse.

Behavior
The infill capable of resisting the applied lateral seismic forces through
axial compression along the diagonal so cracks are formed which serves
as a energy dissipater.

Failure Modes
The Corner Crushing (CC) mode
The Diagonal Compression (DC) mode
The Sliding Shear (SS) mode

Disadvantages
Short Column Effect

Captive-Column

RESTRICTION TO THE LATERAL DISPLACEMENT OF A COLUMN

CREATING A CAPTIVE-COLUMN EFFECT
TYPICAL CAPTIVE COLUMN
FAILURE

INFILL FRAME

(a) Interaction behavior of frame and infill; (b) Analogous

braced frame

TYPES OF BRACING

BRACED FRAME SYSTEMS

CROSS BRACED

CHEVRON
BRACED

DIAGONAL BRACED

KBRACED

Behavior of Braced Frame

Behavior of Braced Frame

Behavior of Braced Frame

Experimental Investigation(1)
Table 1: Description of Various Frames
(1)

Details of the bare

frame(1)

Arrangement of Bracing(1)

(a)

(b)

(c)

(a)Corner Bracing R2
(b)Central Bracing R3
(c) Diagonal Bracing R4

Arrangement of Bracing(1)

Diagonal
bracing
frame
filled
withwith
concrete.
Central
top
bracing
frame
filled
concrete.
Corner
top
bracing
frame
filled
with
concrete.
Corner Bare
top bracing
RC
RC frame
Central
top bracing RC frame
frame.
Diagonal bracing RC frame.

Results

(1)

Comparison of ultimate loads for

different frames

Results

Braced
Frame

Bare RC
Frame

(1)

Braced and Concrete Infilled

Frame

Conclusions

(1)

If the infill is stronger than the frame, the failure mode

corresponds to sway mechanism with major tension cracks
along the tension column. For braced and partially infilled RC
frames, possible plastic hinge locations are at the column
beam junction and the bottom of column.
Based on a comparison with the bare RC frames, braced
frames have shown an increase of 167.3%,220.8%, and 301%
in lateral load capacity. It specifies that the contribution of
bracings is up to a significant level for the lateral strength for
braced frames.
All braced and partially infilled braced frames have
significantly less deflection in comparison to the bare frames.
Though contribution to the strength of partially infilled frames
is 20% in comparison to braced frames, it stiffens the frames

Model Analysis

(2)

Elevation of Unbraced
Structure

Modeling Analysis

PLA
N

(2)

Results

(2)

Lateral Displacement in X

Conclusions

(2)

Displacement of a structure decreases after the application

of bracing system
The maximum reduction in the lateral displacement
occurs after the application of cross bracing system
Bracing system reduces bending moments and shear
forces in the columns.
The performance of cross bracing is better than other
specified bracing systems.
Steel bracings can be used to retrofit existing structure
and total weight will not change significantly after
application of bracing.

Inference
Infilled walls are normally considered non structural elements,
are effective in carrying lateral load.
All partially infilled and braced frames have significantly less
deflection, shear and bending in comparison to the bare frames.
Hence its advised to provide either at soft story level.
Maximum reduction in lateral displacement is achieved by
introduction of cross bracing.
Practically, the partially infilled and centre-braced system may
be viable solution which may not affect architectural or interior
function than that of corner and diagonal bracing partially
infilled sytem for soft storey. For shear wall cross-braced with
infill will be more effective.

References
1) Shailendra Kumar Damodar Dubey and Sunil Y Kute, Experimental
investigation on the ultimate strength of partially infilled and steel-braced
reinforced concrete frames , International Journal of Advanced Structural
Engineering 2013, 5:15
2) Nauman Mohammed, Islam Nazrul , Behaviour of Multistorey RCC
Structure with Different Type of Bracing System (A Software Approach) ,
International Journal of Innovative Research in Science, Engineering and
Technology, Vol. 2, Issue 12, December 2013
3) Santiago Pujol, Amadeo Benavent-Climent, Mario E Rodriguez, and J. Paul
Smith-Pardo Masonry infill walls: an effective alternative for seismic
Strengthening of low-rise reinforced concrete building Structures The 14th
World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, October 12-17, 2008,
Beijing, China
4) Bryan Stanford Smith & Alex Coull, Tall Building Structures: Analysis &
Design, A Wiley-Interscience Publication, 1991