Abstract

Catastrophic failure of infilled reinforced concrete frames has repeatedly been reported in many devastating earthquakes in the world, of which the observed seismic performances fall short of design engineers’ expectations. In this seminar, examples of seismic failure mechanisms of infilled RC frames with different infill configurations are introduced, followed by presenting a thorough investigation, with an advanced damage-based discrete finite element modelling method, on the dynamic properties, infill-to-frame interaction, bracing mechanisms, hysteretic behaviour and seismic vulnerability of common types of infilled frames. Based on the research findings, design recommendations to identify and mitigate the vulnerability of infilled reinforced concrete frame structures to seismic actions are presented and discussed.