EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON THE OUT-OF-PLANE BEHAVIOUR OF CONCRETE MASONRY INFILLED FRAMES

Abstract

This thesis presents an integral part of an on-going research on out-of-plane behaviour of masonry infills, this study was motivated to augment the existing experimental database on out-of-plane behaviour and strength of masonry infills by expanding on the variations on the parameters, and to assess the efficacy of existing analytical methods for infill out-of-plane strength calculation. A total of five scaled masonry infilled frame specimens including four masonry infilled RC frames and one masonry infilled steel frame were tested to failure under uniformly distributed out-of-plane loading. Parameters considered for the RC frame specimens included infill opening (door opening), prior in-plane damage, and gaps at either frame-to-beam or frame-to-column interfaces. Experimental results showed that all studied parameters have a significant effect on the out-of-plane behaviour and strength of infills.