Impact of irregular masonry infill walls on the seismic response of reinforced concrete frame buildings using linear dynamic analysis

This paper aimed to investigate the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings using linear dynamic analysis. The study focused on the effects of irregular distributions of masonry infill walls both in elevation (soft story at different levels) and in horizontal (plan) distribution on seismic behavior. Seventeen models were analyzed, including infill frame models with soft stories, models with infill panels only in certain bays, and bare frame models. All models were analyzed using the linear response spectrum (RS) dynamic analysis method. Structural design typically focuses on peak response values, and response spectrum analysis examines the structure's behavior and performance through these peak values. The analysis results indicate that masonry infill walls significantly affect the building's fundamental time period, base shear, story shear, and inter-story drift. (c) 2024 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).