Project Title:  Seismic Evaluation and Innovative Strengthening Solutions for Existing RC Frame Structures with Infills

Funding Agency: 2566 TUBITAK - Bilateral Cooperation with National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) - 123N803

Project Coordinator: Prof. Dr. Alper İlki (İTÜ) – Prof. Dr. Xiang-Lin Gu (Tongji Üniv.)

Investigators: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Umut Hasgül (Balikesir Üniv.)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Altuğ Yavaş (Balikesir Üniv.)
Assist. Prof. Dr. Tamer Birol (Balıkesir Üniv.)
Assist. Prof. Dr. Erkan Töre (Balıkesir Üniv.)

Reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures with infills are commonly adopted in China and Turkey. These structures are witnessed serious damage in earthquakes due to irregularities in strength and stiffness which is due to the flexible layout of infilled walls. The frame-infill interaction effects, as well as interaction behavior between orthogonal infilled frames, make the precise analysis of highly-nonlinear seismic responses of such structures more complex and difficult. The structure exhibits various disaster mechanisms such as damage evolution, local failure, and overall collapse under earthquake actions. At the same time, the existing structures, which are intact, seismic damaged, or strengthened, resulted in significant uncertainties in prediction of the collapse mode and failure process. Adjusting the structural irregularity on the system level and strengthening the columns and infilled walls on the component level, are expected to effectively optimize the structural failure process and to improve the structural seismic behavior. This project is coordinately applied Tongji University (China), Istanbul Technical University (Turkey), and Balikesir University, which are all strong in the field of seismic evaluation and strengthening. The exploratory research proposed will be conducted by using combined case study, experimental, numerical and theoretical investigations. Five working packages are intended to solve three key scientificproblems, i.e., frame-infill interaction effects, damage evolution and collapse mechanism of RC frame structures with infills, and seismic strengthening mechanism of RC frame structures with infills. This proposal aims to develop seismic evaluation methods of RC frame structures with infills, covering different scenarios, and to propose seismic strengthening strategy by using advanced material technologies.