Effects of infill walls on base responses and roof drift of reinforced concrete buildings under time‐history loading

In this study, the effects of infill walls on base reaction and roof drift of reinforced concrete frames were investigated. These effects were studied using 3D finite element method on 216 building models. Number of floors, number of bays, ratio of shear walls and ratio of infilled bays were selected as parameters. Sensitivity analysis was performed to determine the effect of each parameter on base shear, normal base reaction and roof drift. Based on the sensitivity analysis, the percentage of shear walls was the most important parameter affecting base shear, normal base reaction and roof drift. The effect of infill walls on base shear, normal base reaction and roof drift decreased when the percentage of the shear walls increased. The models without any infill walls had minimal normal base reaction under time‐history loading. However, an increase in the percentage of infill walls led to an increase in normal base reaction. The roof drift of the models was not critical. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.