Performance evaluation of the energy dissipating hysteretic infill wall frame considering opening under in-plane and out-of-plane loading

An energy dissipating hysteretic infill wall system comprising slotted concrete blocks interlinked with energy dissipating link elements is conceptualized and developed. A comprehensive experimental and numerical study is conducted on the energy dissipating hysteretic infill system to prove its efficacy and efficiency over the conventional brick infill system. The energy dissipating hysteretic infills act as passive energy dissipating system with an improvement over the conventional infills such as the arrest of the diagonal compressive strut formation, a stable post-yield behavior for the infilled frame, and a better failure mechanism. The performance of the energy dissipating hysteretic infilled frames is evaluated under uni-axial in-plane loading, out-of-plane loading, and also simultaneous bi-axial loading, considering the effect of opening. The observed behavior is ascribed to the energy dissipation mechanism, which is a combination of the yielding of the energy dissipating link elements and the friction between the blocks. A numerical modeling of the energy dissipating hysteretic infill is developed in OpenSees by calibrating the YamamotoBiaxialHDR element and singleFPBearing element with the experimental test data of the energy dissipating hysteretic infill wall system.