Abstract:
Infill walls are very common structure present around us but their significance was
always overlooked leading to the premature collapse of building during the laterals loads
such as earthquake and wind loads. After many drastic failures of masonry buildings,
civil engineers try to find the answer for the failure of these buildings. Later, studies
show that the infill walls play an important role when the lateral loads are applied on to
the structure.
Engineers also found that it is very difficult to conduct experimental studies by changing
different parameters of the infill walls. So, researchers have been finding other simpler
methods to analyse the infill walls to get the actual behaviour of the structure under
lateral loading. This leads to the formulation of numerical modelling so that the
behaviour can be easily analysed by simply changing the parameters as well as the
material properties.
This thesis paper is set out to study the effect of lateral loading on an unconfined
masonry, effect of confining frame, effect of lintel beams and effect of size of openings
and their orientations using ANSYS software. Performance of each models were studied
by comparing the load carrying capacity, initial lateral stiffness and energy dissipation
capacity.
