Infill Modelling Influence on Dynamic Identification and Model Updating of Reinforced Concrete Framed Buildings

In order to correctly capture the dynamic behavior of infilled framed buildings, the importance to take into account in seismic design the infill panels' contribution is nowadays well recognized since they could modify in a significant way the global and local response of the whole building. Despite about sixty years of continuous research in the field, the modelling of the frame-infill interaction still represents a serious issue for the daily practical design since there is no reference model proven to be suitable to cover a wide record of possible cases. Moreover, few works are available in the literature, comparing the results of different modelling proposals with outcomes of dynamic tests on a full-scale building. To this regard, starting from the results of induced vibration dynamic tests performed on a 7-story building with reinforced concrete frames with masonry infill, in the present paper, the effects of the infill presence have been evaluated by comparing experimental outcomes, achieved using a MDOF Circle-Fit identification procedure, with the results obtained by means of numerical analyses performed on finite element models. Using a model updating procedure, the optimal width to assign to the masonry equivalent struts modelling the infill panels was defined. Furthermore, several literature proposals for the definition of the equivalent strut width have been analysed. Thirteen different proposals have been selected and implemented in thirteen different finite element models. The reliability of each proposal has been investigated and quantified by comparing the dynamic properties of the models with the building dynamic response obtained by the experimental tests. The main outcomes of the analyses highlight that different proposals provide a great variability for the strut width. This brings to a large variability of the mechanical properties of the equivalent struts, and as a consequence, the modelling choice also influences the dynamic behaviour of the numerical models. Currently, this represents a serious issue for the daily designers' activity. The outcomes provided in the paper, although established for a specific case study, can be extended to a wide range of buildings and should drive the future research studies in order to provide more robust criteria for the modelling of this worldwide building class.