In-Plane Behavior of Structural Clay Tile Infilled Frames

Large-scale structural clay tile infilled steel frames were tested under in-plane loading. All infills failed through corner crushing, and the failure load was relatively insensitive to framing characteristics. An analytical procedure was proposed in which the peak strength of the infill for the corner crushing limit state is a function only of fm′ and the thickness of the infill. This simple method predicted the strength better than any other analytical method. A piecewise linear equivalent strut was used to model the stiffness of the infill. The behavior of the structural clay tile infills (cracking, tile failure, and stiffness) was better correlated with actual displacements, than with nondimensional story drift (displacement divided by height). Bending moments and axial forces in the bounding frame were examined, with the infill having little effect on the moments in the columns. The results of several other configurations, including a repaired infill, an eccentric infill, an infill with column gaps, and an infill with a corner opening, were also reported.