Paolo Morandi

Damage Control for Clay Masonry Infills in the Design of RC Frame Structures

The damage to non structural masonry infills in RC frame structures induced by earthquake ground motions represents a considerable source of economic losses and a serious threat to human lives. Although measures for the prevention of infill damage are to some extent included in modern seismic design codes, an effective design procedure has not yet been achieved. Hence, the objective of this research is to identify, through numerical investigations and a review of previous experimental findings, the performance of masonry infills in RC frame structures designed following European code provisions, with reference to different design parameters, including building height, level of design seismic loading, ductility class, masonry typology, and infill density. The introduction of possible improvements to the current design procedure is envisaged, with the aim of achieving enhanced infill damage control through the limitation of inter-story drifts. In particular, as the first part of a wider research program, the study is focused on the behavior of traditional unreinforced clay masonry infill typologies, with masonry panels constructed in complete contact with the surrounding RC frame, since such construction techniques are still being widely used in European seismic regions.

Prediction of inter-storey drifts for regular RC structures with masonry infills based on bare frame modelling

The traditional construction of masonry infills adjacent to RC structural elements is still widely adopted in European countries, including seismically active regions. Given the repeated field observations from damaging earthquakes, pointing to unacceptably high levels of masonry infill damage, the present study is motivated by the need to improve further the European seismic design approach for new RC structures with masonry infills, in order to exclude the poor seismic behaviour probably caused by deficiencies in the verification procedure. Since the in-plane damage to non-structural panels is commonly controlled through the limitation of inter-storey drifts, the possibility to introduce more effective verification criteria, accounting for structural properties, infill layouts and masonry properties is explored. Therefore, starting from the assumption that analyses and verifications in the design of buildings are commonly accomplished neglecting the presence of infills, results of extensive nonlinear numerical analyses for different building configurations are examined. As a result, a simplified procedure for the prediction of expected inter-storey drifts for infilled structures, based on the corresponding demands of bare configurations, in function of a simple parameter accounting for structural properties and the presence of infills, is introduced. Possible implications of the proposed approach aimed at the improvement of the current design provisions are discussed.

Local effects on RC frames induced by AAC masonry infills through FEM simulation of in-plane tests

Unreinforced masonry infills are widely used in many parts of the world and it is common practice for seismic design to use simplified methods that usually do not take into account the interaction between the infill and the structure. Starting from the 1950s, many researchers have investigated the lateral response of masonry infills focusing on several different topics. The scientific interest on masonry infills is continuously raising due to the unsatisfactory seismic response of the infilled frame structures observed during post-event inspections and to the difficulty to contrive a widely scientifically and practical recognized solution. Although some modern codes consider the presence of infills with some specifications to prevent damage in the masonry panels and global and local effects on the structure, an effective evaluation of these detrimental effects has not been achieved yet. Within this paper, a FEM simulation of in-plane pseudo-static cyclic tests on a RC frame specimen infilled with unreinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) masonry infill has been performed in order to study accurately the influence and the interaction of the infill with the RC structure. The experimental results performed by Calvi and Bolognini (J Earthq Eng 5:153–185, 1999), and Penna and Calvi (Campagna sperimentale su telai in c.a. con tamponamenti in Gasbeton (AAC) con diverse soluzioni di rinforzo” (in Italian), 2006) on one-bay one-storey full scale specimens are taken as reference. Non-linear static analyses using a “meso-modelling” approach have been carried out. The masonry used in the model has been calibrated according to tests of mechanical characterization and to in-plane cyclic tests on load-bearing AAC masonry conducted by Costa et al. (J Earthq Eng 15:1–31, 2011). The analyses performed have allowed to investigate the local effects on the frame and, in particular, the changes in the moment and shear demands on the RC elements due to the presence of the AAC infill in comparison with the ones in the bare structure, and to estimate the thrust and the contact length activated by the infill on the frame.

Mechanical characterization and force-displacement hysteretic curves from in-plane cyclic tests on strong masonry infills

This article contains information related to a recent study “Performance-based interpretation of in-plane cyclic tests on RC frames with strong masonry infills” (Morandi et al., 2017 [1]). Motivated by the necessity to improve the knowledge of the in-plane seismic response of rigid strong masonry infills, a wide experimental campaign based on in-plane cyclic tests on full-scale RC infilled frame specimens, supplemented with a complete characterization of the materials, has been conducted at the laboratory of the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Pavia. The masonry is constituted by vertically perforated 35 cm thick clay units with tongue and groove and dry head-joints and general-purpose mortar bed-joints. The paper reports the results of the mechanical characterization and of the force-displacement hysteretic curves from the in-plane cyclic tests.