Earthquake‐resistant AAC infills: damage prevention with an innovative decoupling system

Background

Recent studies on masonry infills have shown that damages can be more serious when frame and infill are coupled. Although the discussion on out‐of‐plane (OOP) stability and strength of isolated infills is still open, the development of solutions able to assure the decoupling of infill panels respect to structural frame seems to be the most promising in terms of damage prevention of the building.

Aim

A system for decoupling the RC frame and the aerated autoclaved concrete (AAC) masonry infill reinforced with textile reinforced mortar (TRM) is presented. The goal is to analyze the potential of this system to face the OOP actions caused by a seismic event.

Method

In this system, the frame is free to deform in its plane, without interaction with the AAC infill, which is supported by retaining brackets at the top. These brackets allow relative in‐plane displacements between the RC frame and the masonry infill and avoid OOP overturning of the infill.

Results

The paper shows the design of the system and provides an overview of the seismic capacities validated by testing on the system components. Based on the analysis and comparison of the test results, the performance and effectiveness of the proposed system are presented.