IRREGULARITIES INDUCED BY NONSTRUCTURAL MASONRY PANELS IN FRAMED BUILDINGS

The effects of the nonstructural masonry infills on the global seismic behaviour of frame structures are discussed, based on the results of full-scale pseudodynamic tests and the post-test calculations. The tes ts were performed on a four-storey framed structure designed according to Eurocode 8, with different infill configurations. The results show that an irregular distribution of the panels yields unacceptably larg e damage in the frame. In addition, it is shown that even a regular di stribution of infills can lead to irregular behaviour of the frame, Th e possibility of predicting the behaviour of such structures by means of global models is explored. Based on the comparison of the experimen tal and numerical results a set of guidelines for calibrating the glob al models to reliably predict the behaviour of this class of structure s is given. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.