Effects of strengthening the masonry infills by reinforced shotcrete on seismic behavior of steel frames with Khoureeni connections and their elements

A large number of buildings in Iran are constructed with masonry infills for functional and architectural reasons. Often, engineers do not consider masonry infill walls in the design process because the final distribution of these elements may be unknown to them, or because masonry walls are regarded as non-structural elements. However, infill walls tend to interact with the frame when the structure is subjected to lateral loads. Masonry infills contribute to the stiffness of the infilled frame under the action of lateral load. This leads to structural response deviating from what is expected in the design. The effects of the infills on the seismic behavior of buildings may be positive or negative, depending on a large number of parameters. Steel frames with Khorjeeni connections have been widely used in the traditional construction of buildings in Iran during the past decades. In the traditional form of Khorjeeni connections, double section beams are not cut at the intersection with columns, rather they are connected to the column by means of two angles places over the top and bottom of the beam flanges. This type of connection offers advantages for frames, wich carry gravity loads, but it has deficiencies when the frames are subjected to lateral loads. Like other structural frames, there are masonry infills in many frames with Khorjeeni connections. The behavior of composite frames subject to lateral loads differs from that of bare steel frames. In this paper, positive and negative effects of masonry infills were studied on the behavior of steel frames with Khorjeeni connections. Finite element method was used to carry out nonlinear static analysis of subassemblages of this type of frames. Initially, the results of some experiments were utilized to verify the details of the model. Then numerical models of toe span or four span frames with different configuration of bracings and masonry infills were studied. The results showed that infill frames increase the stiffness and strength of frames in the absence of bracing considerably. Even when bracings are present, the increase in stiffness and strength is significant. Simplified compressive strut models proposed in recent guidelines for seismic rehabilitation of existing buildings are also utilized to analyze the models. The results show agreement with the results of more sophisticated FE models. The masonry infills, however, have some negative effects on the behavior of Khorjeeni frames. Parts of the column in the vicinity of connections are prone to plastic damage, particularly when the infills are relatively strong. The Khorjeeni connections are subjected to vertical forces and tortional moments. Due to limited vertical strength of these connections, top stories of this type of frames may suffer when compressive action of strut is mobilized for other bays. This action introduces additional moments, which may damage the connections. Therefore, considering of these negative effects of infills is very important when seismic behavior of the existing frames is assessed, because these effects limit the interstorey drift ratios.