Alex Brodsky, Oded Rabinovitch, and David Z. Yankelevsky
Alex Brodsky, PhD student, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel, brod@technion.ac.il
Oded Rabinovitch, Professor, Abel Wolman Chair in Civil Engineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel, cvoded@technion.ac.il
David Z. Yankelevsky, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel, davidyri@technion.ac.il
ABSTRACT
The in plane behavior of masonry infill walls that are subjected to lateral loading simulating the effects of earthquakes on buildings has been the subject of many studies. The present work is focused on a problem that has been hardly studied and refers to the vertical action on such walls. In particular, it concerns a vertical action that evolves when a supporting column of a multi-story reinforced concrete frame with infill masonry walls fails. Such failure may happen as a result of extreme loadings for instance a strong earthquake, car impact, or military or terror action in proximity to the column. Without infill walls, the loss of a supporting column may lead to a partial or even full progressive collapse of the bare reinforced concrete frames. The presence of masonry infill walls may restrain the process and even prevent the development of a progressive collapse mechanism. The aim of this study is to look into the role of the composite action of a frame and an infill wall in the event of loss of a supporting column. The study adopts an experimental methodology and numerical methods aiming to evaluate the contributions of the unreinforced masonry infill, to examine its interaction with the frame, and to quantify its contribution to the resistance of the bare frame under such circumstances.
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