Earthquake Response of Reinforced Concrete Frames with Infill and Active External Confinement: Tests and Dataset

One option to retrofit reinforced concrete (RC) frames is the construction of infill walls. Many studies have shown that infill increases lateral strength and stiffness but tends to reduce drift capacity relative to bare frames. Fewer studies have quantified reductions in drift demand attributed to infills prior to failure. This report summarizes experiments designed to compare drift demands of frames with and without infill. Included data comes from two theses completed at Purdue University which focused on the dynamic response of one-third scale, non-ductile RC frames to uniaxial simulated earthquake ground motions. Tests were conducted on bare frames, frames with masonry infill walls, and frames with timber infill walls. In 11 of 14 test series, active confinement was applied to columns using external post-tensioned reinforcement

This dataset summarizes two experimental programs that studied the dynamic, in-plane response of one-third scale RC frames with full-height infills and active external column confinement. Theses summarized were written by Monical (2021) and Kerby (2022), and included data from 254 in-plane dynamic tests of non-ductile RC frames with various seismic retrofits.