Behavior of infill walls under out-of-plane excitations

Existing reinforced concrete structures are typically equipped with infill walls adjacent to the perimeter frames. These walls are made of semi-solid or hollow brick masonry. During seismic excitation, out-of-plane collapse of these walls may occur due to their low flexural strength.

The following describes the verification procedure for infill walls subjected to out-of-plane excitations, both for unreinforced walls and walls reinforced with the use of composite materials.

A numerical study is also presented, highlighting the performance of both unreinforced and reinforced walls with different geometries and the presence of openings.