Effects of Nonstructural Brick Infills on an Indonesian Earthquake-Damaged Building

This paper describes the effects of nonstructural brick infills on the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (R/C) buildings. Experimental and analytical studies were conducted focusing on an Indonesian earthquake-damaged building due to the 2007 Sumatra earthquakes. Structural details of the building are summarized herein. A brick wall was extracted from the earthquake-damaged building and transported to Japan from Indonesia to experimentally evaluate its seismic performance. Two R/C single-bay frame specimens were constructed, and the imported wall was installed in one of the specimens. Comparing the seismic performance of specimens with and without the brick infill through quasi-static cyclic loading tests, the effects of infill on the overall frame performance were quantitatively evaluated. Moreover, the seismic performance of the earthquake-damaged building was evaluated numerically considering the findings of the tests. In particular, the contributions of nonstructural brick infills to the seismic performance were discussed through the probabilities of collapse computed under several artificial earthquake ground motions. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection