IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308 _______________________________________________________________________________________ Volume: 04 Special Issue: 13 | ICISE-2015 | Dec-2015, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 183 BEHAVIOUR OF REINFORCED CONCRETE INFILL PANELS UNDER LATERAL LOAD Sandesh Sharma 1 , Sharadkumar Purohit 2 , Paresh V. Patel 3 , Tushar Bhoraniya 4 1 M. Tech. Student, Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India – 382481, 13mclc21@nirmauni.ac.in 2 Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India – 382481, sharad.purohit@nirmauni.ac.in 3 Professor, Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India – 382481, paresh.patel@nirmauni.ac.in 4 Ph. D. Student, Civil Engineering Department, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India – 382481, 12extphd90@nirmauni.ac.in Abstract Most multi-storey building construction consists of RC frames with UM infills. Traditionally, infills are made of the RCB; however, to reduce Dead Load on the building, RCB are being replaced by AAC and FAB. UM infill is vulnerable element during an earthquake, since it fails by Shear, Sliding and Out-of-plane bending. Behaviour of infill with RCB is well studied; however, studies on infill with AAC and FAB are limited. In the present study, behaviour of different RC infill panels is studied and compared with bare RC frame under monotoniclateral load. RC frame specimens comprising of two columns connected by horizontal beam at top and bottom are developed and tested. Parameters considered for the study are Lateral Displacement, Lateral Stiffness, Failure Load and Patterns. Lateral displacement of all types of RC infill panels are reduced substantially as compared to bare RC frame. RC frame infilled with AAC block shows maximum lateral displacement followed by RC frame infilled with FAB and RCB. RC frame infilled with RCB withstand maximum lateral load while RC frame infilled with FAB withstandthe least load. The failure patterns observed for RC frame with different infills are mostly stepped type and shear type. KEYWORDS: Prism Test, AAC Block, Fly Ash Brick, R.C. Infilled Frame, Monotonic Lateral Load -------------------------------------------------------------------***------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION Use of masonry panels in RC frame buildings is very common in developing countries to serve various purposes. Most commonly used material is Red Clay Brick due economy. An infilled RC frame panels behaves as composite structure under lateral load. Current construction practice undertakes extended use of light-weight infill panel elements as compared to relatively heavy RCB in order to reduce the Dead Load on the building. This is typically followed for moderate- to high rise buildings. The infill panels are one of the vulnerable elements in the RC building when subjected to earthquake excitation. Therefore, it is important to study the behaviour of infill panels under lateral load.Behaviour of RC infill panels with RCB are well studied by many researchers, however, studies on RC frame infilled with AAC and FAB is limited. Therefore, it is imperative to study the influence of such infill panels to earthquake excitation. Present study deals with behaviour of Bare RC Frame and RC Frame infilled with RCB, AAC and FAB under monotonic lateral loads. Four RC Framespecimens are casted that included one bare RC frame and three RC frame infillswith RCB, AAC and FAB. All RC frames are tested under monotonic lateral load and parameters like lateral displacement, Lateral stiffness, Failure loads and patterns are extracted. Parameters obtained experimentally for all infilled RC frame are compared with bare RC frame as well as former are compared among themselves. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW Many studies have been done on the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the infill materials as well as on the behaviour of the RC infill panels under lateral load. Sarangapaniet al. 1 have studied Mortar and Compressive Strength of masonry. It has been showedthat masonry compressive strength is not affected by mortar bond strength significantly.For poor bond strength, masonry prism leads to failure throughbond separation of one or more joints. AlShebani andSinha 2 studied deformation characteristics of a sand plast (a form of calcium silicate) brick masonry model subjected to uniaxial cyclic loading in both perpendicular and parallel direction of the bed joint. Failure in compression occurred by splitting in bed joints for loads parallel to the bed joint, whereas for load normal to the bed joint, failure was characterized by a combined failure in the brick units and/or head joint, often accompanied by through- splitting in the midsection of panel. Hamid andChukwunenye 3 showed thath/t ratio has a significant influence on the behaviour of masonry prisms.Study suggests that practice of concrete masonry prisms with h/t = 2.0 and onebed joint as standard prism should be discontinued, and prisms with number of bed joints greater than or equal to two should be used to determine the