ANALYTICAL APPROACH OF EARTH MASONRY INFILL-PANEL SUBJECT TO SEISMIC LOADS

Abstract

Earth wall has been observed to be a structural, flexible and inexpensive element in construction. In this work an investigation was carried out on the earth (laterite) wall as an infill panel to determine its hysteric parameters, strength degradation and stiffness decay due to seismic loading. Prediction formulation, for the lateral strength and stiffness parameters of the panel was obtained. Equivalent strut model was found to be appropriate in the analysis, while Bouc-Wen model was employed for hysteresis behaviour. The multistory frame structure with the earth wall in-fills behaves purely as braced element in which the lateral loads are resisted by a truss mechanism, formed by the compression in the earth wall infill panels and tension in the column. The force-displacement response for this element may be employed to assess the overall structural damage and its distribution to a sufficient degree of accuracy.