Mechanical behavior of the reinforced concrete frame with masonry filling Comportement mécanique des portiques en béton armé avec remplissage en maçonnerie

Masonry is often used in the most of reinforced concrete structure constructions as a filling material that is important on structural characteristics. Structural contribution in the calculations was neglected or misunderstood, mainly due to the lack of a practical calculation methods and an appropriate regulatory tool.The analysis of frames filled with masonry is very complex. This complexity is linked from one part to the difference in the nature of elements and its behavior that make up the masonry itself (brick and mortar) and their interaction, and on the other part, for the large dispersion that characterizes the bricks as well as the execution's quality parameters which make it difficult to define reliable criteria for the masonry. The objective of this work is to experimentally highlight the influence of the hollow brick masonry filler, commonly used in Morocco, on reinforced concrete frames subject to lateral stresses, to deepen understanding the seismic behavior of the masonry structures by evaluating the structural performance of a specimen wall. These experimental results will be compared to those found by modeling prototypes, using SAP 2000 software, based on various approaches and models as well as other results deduced from the other researchers. The experimental study was carried out according to standard NF EN 1052-3 on two reinforced concrete frames, of dimensions (2m X 1.6m), the one with the masonry filling, and the other without filling in order to determine the initial characteristic resistance to the shearing of the masonry walls. The obtained results showed that a filling has a beneficial effect on rigidity which can be doubled compared to an empty frame. in the same way the lateral resistance. But this effect is much contrasted; it depends a lot on the characteristics essentially of the materials (bricks and concrete). This is the main reason, which justifies the divergence of the results deduced from the nine models that we used.