Modeling of the lateral stiffness of masonry infilled steel moment-resisting frames

This paper presents an analytical model for the estimation of initial lateral stiffness of steel moment resisting frames with masonry infills. However, rather than focusing on the single bay-single storey substructure, the developed model attempts to estimate the global stiffness of multi-storey and multi-bay frames, using an assembly of equivalent springs and taking into account the shape of the lateral loading pattern. The contribution from each infilled frame panel is included as an individual spring, whose properties are determined on the basis of established diagonal strut macro-modeling approaches from the literature. The proposed model is evaluated parametrically against numerical results from frame analyses, with varying number of frame stories, infill openings, masonry thickness and modulus of elasticity. The performance of the model is evaluated and found quite satisfactory.