On the seismic behavior of a reinforced concrete building with masonry infills collapsed during the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake

The 2009 L'Aquila, Italy earthquake shook a high density area causing a wide spectrum of damage to reinforced concrete with infill buildings, one of the most common building types used in Italy. The earthquake has proven to be a "full-scale" laboratory to further understand building performance. This paper presents the first results of a joint research effort between the University of Bologna and Degenkolb Engineers, aimed at investigating the seismic behavior of an infilled frame building that collapsed during the earthquake. State-of-the-practice techniques were implemented as a way to determine the reliability of these modeling techniques in anticipating the observed building performance. The main results indicate that: (i) the state-of-the-practice techniques are able to predict the observed behavior of the buildings; (ii) the masonry infills have a great influence on the behavior of the building in terms of stiffness, strength and global ductility.