In-plane Behavior of Steel Frames with Various Infill Materials; A Parametric Finite Element Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran

10.22091/cer.2025.11867.1587

Abstract

With development of new technologies in recent years, traditional masonry infills have gradually been replaced by modern one like Concrete Sandwich Panels (CSP). In the present paper, the seismic in-plane behavior of steel frame infilled with CSP has been compared with masonry-infilled frames. To this end, two widely used masonry infill types, i.e. clay brick and Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) block, were selected to investigate and compare with the behavior of CSP-infilled steel frames. First, numerical models were created through finite element (FE) method and then validated against experimental results for single bay bare and infilled frames. Afterwards, by considering the factors affecting the lateral behavior of infilled frames, i.e. the infill material, aspect ratio and number of spans, a parametric study was carried out on the infilled frames. The results showed that the steel frame infilled with CSP has higher initial stiffness and maximum lateral strength than masonry-infilled frames. The initial stiffness of the infilled frame with CSP was computed to be 1.90 and 2.95 times that of the steel frame infilled with brick and AAC block, respectively. Also, the maximum lateral strength of the CSP-infilled frame was 1.48 and 1.80 times, respectively, of the frame with brick and AAC block. The results of infilled frames with various aspect ratios displayed that the effect of increasing the span length on the in-plane behavior of the CSP-infilled frame is more significant than that of the masonry models.

Keywords

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References

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