Bangladesh is in a moderately seismic-active
region. Due to the unplanned construction, many buildings have been built
without proper seismic consideration. Also, the seismic zone factors in the
seismic code were revised in 2020. This revision raised the seismic design
force to 1.5 times the previous in some areas. In this situation, it is
necessary to check the seismic safety of the existing buildings. This study
aims to evaluate the seismic performance of RC frame buildings considering the
effect of infill brick masonry designed by the previous code. In Bangladesh,
the load-bearing capacity of masonry walls is not considered during structural
design. However, for dealing with more severe seismic conditions assumed in the
current code, we attempt to include the effects of infills in the seismic
performance evaluation. To investigate these effects, we execute earthquake
response analyses to three models. One has high-quality masonry infills, and
the other has low-quality infills. The third model is the bare frame model. To
get seismic responses, we apply the capacity spectrum method and response
history analyses. By comparing the earthquake responses for three models, we
concluded that high-quality masonry infills could improve the seismic
performance of the RC buildings sufficiently so that the existing building may
resist even against the seismic forces assumed in the current code.
Keywords: Seismic performance, Masonry infill, Seismic code, Artificial ground motion