A review of performance evaluation of RC-infilled frames under earthquake scenarios

Generally, reinforced concrete buildings are constructed with frames, where walls are made with or without infills, sometimes with partial infills. These infills act as partitions separating the rooms, providing pathways, and creating ventilation. Materials used for infilling are mostly masonry. These structures are designed for high in-plane stiffness and strength, whereas the effects of infills do not interfere with the design aspect. So a proportional study of bare frames and infilled frames is done by collecting research works based on tests carried out on cyclic loading, reverse cyclic loading, lateral loading, in-plane loading and out-of-plane loading, and push-over analysis as experimental work, then theoretical comparison and numerical method with the help of analytical software like, finite element method, ETABS, Abaqus, and few others are collected. Infill materials used were conventional clay bricks, hollow clay blocks, solid clay blocks, and lightweight blocks. Some lightweight materials studied here were autoclaved aerated concrete blocks, cellular lightweight concrete blocks, and gypsum blocks. The tests were performed on scaled and non-scaled models, prototypes and in some cases, real-life cases were also tested. Based on the survey conducted on the abundant works done by researchers worldwide, insights about the different testing methods, and strengthening processes used, suggest that the lightweight infill materials used to enhance the ability of the structure against seismic activity and different failure modes, which were discussed based on the methods and other available materials used.