Abstract
The current paper presents a comprehensive numerical study of the impact of infill walls configuration on the behavior of existing Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed buildings with plan irregularities. A significant portion of these buildings constitutes a considerable percentage of real estate assets across all countries, particularly in Egypt, and they often lack sufficient seismic detailing. Additionally, the study investigates how can utilizing various infill wall configurations enhance or mitigate plan irregularities. Nonlinear dynamic time history analyses were conducted on two groups of medium- and low-rise unsymmetrical C-shaped buildings using SeismoStruct software, employing the double-strut nonlinear cyclic model for infill walls. Three different ground motion records with varying frequency contents; high, medium, and low were scaled to different levels, ranging from 0.1g to 0.5g, for use during the analysis. The results indicate that infill walls could enhance the seismic performance of RC-framed buildings with plan irregularity using the proper configuration in terms of story drift, rotation, and structural damage. Additionally, infill walls could be considered as a retrofitting solution for rehabilitating irregular plan buildings, without requiring traditional seismic rehabilitation methods, and within the available architectural solutions.