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Newsletter
Seismic Design Concepts for New Framed Infill Buildings
Worldwide
2012 - present
Framed Infill Network members research an infill building under construction in Kathmandu (from GeoHazards International; NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; Tipping Mar; and NSET-Nepal.)
Conceptual Seismic Design Guidance for New Framed Infill Buildings Click here to download the manual.
The Framed Infill Network is comprised of engineering researchers, practicing engineers, architects, builders, and building officials who live and work in earthquake-impacted countries around the globe. www.framedinfill.org.
Created with support from Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) and Thornton Tomasetti Foundation, with partners at Stanford University Blume Earthquake Engineering Center.
Buildings constructed with concrete frames and masonry infill walls can become lethal in earthquakes. In the last decade alone, tens of thousands of people died in such buildings that collapsed during earthquakes. Poor construction or lack of engineering sometimes caused the failure. But a major problem is that the design ignores the infill’s impact on the building’s structural integrity. Damage can concentrate and weaken a more open ground story.
Buildings of this type walls can range from one to 20 stories high. Used extensively for housing, offices, shops, and schools, they are common in earthquake-prone urban regions of Asia, Central and South America, and the Mediterranean. Typically built with readily available materials and techniques that are familiar, their cost is low, which is why such structures will continue to be built.
The Framed Infill Network, created by GeoHazards International in 2012, developed five strategies to help engineers design safer buildings with concrete frames and masonry infill--or determine when it makes more sense to use a different structural system. The term “framed infill” describes buildings with the safer construction methods. We created a design manual to help engineers understand and apply these earthquake resistant, affordable techniques to new building design.
The design concepts and manual provide feasible technical solutions to design seismically-resistant structures in countries where infill construction predominates. If adopted widely, the new techniques will improve local capacity to reduce earthquake risk.
