COMPARISON OF REINFORCED CONCRETE FRAMES MODELLED WITH AND WITHOUT INFILL WALLS

In the present scenario of the construction sector, reinforced concrete structures having infill walls are analysed and designed as bare frames i.e. without taking into consideration strength and stiffness of infills, though in reality they act as a single unit during earthquakes. The aim is to study the effect of masonry infill walls on the behavior and performance of the buildings through different parameters such as time period, storey drift, maximum displacement for column, details of concrete and reinforcement and distribution of base shear. For this purpose nine models of three, six and nine storeys have been selected and modeled with and without infill using STAAD.Pro V8i software. The results indicated that masonry infills eminently increase the stiffness and strength of a structure by reducing fundamental time period by 40%, storey drift by about (25-40)% and displacement by about (15-35)% ,also member forces were increased by (90-95)% showing that structure is attracting more forces due more stiffness