Experimental damage evaluation of prototype infill wall based on forced vibration test

This paper aims to investigate vibration frequency decrease (vibration period elongation) of reinforced concrete (RC) structure with unreinforced infill wall and reinforced infill wall exposed to progressively increased artificial earthquake load on shaking table. For this purpose, two shaking table experiments were selected as a case study. Shaking table experiments were carried on 1:1 scaled prototype one bay one storey RC structure with infill walls. The purpose of this shaking table experiment sequence is to assess local behavior and progressive collapse mechanism. Frequency decrease and eigen-vector evolution are directly related to in-plane and out-of-plane bearing capacities of infill wall enclosure with reinforced concrete frame. Firstly, frequency decrease-damage relationship was evaluated on the base of experiment results. Then, frequency decrease and stiffness degradation were evaluated with applied Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) by considering strength deterioration. Lastly, eigenvector evolution-local damage and eigenvector evolution-frequency decrease relationship was investigated. Five modes were considered while evaluating damage and frequency decrease of the tested specimens. The relationship between frequency decrease, stiffness degradation and damage level were presented while comparing with Unreinforced Brick Infill (URB) and Reinforced Infill wall with Bed Joint Reinforcement (BJR) on the base of natural vibration frequency.