Stiffness and strength of the engineered fused infilled frame

Most types of infills cannot be regarded as engineered elements, especially owing to the lack of sufficient ductility, and they are normally ignored in the analysis of structures. Recently a new type of infill has been proposed that has a frictional fuse at the mid-height. High ductility and strength of such infills have been confirmed through experimental studies. A formula is proposed in this paper for the ultimate strength of the fused infilled frame, based on finite-element analyses, verified by experimental data, depending on the material properties, dimensions of the frame and infill and the fuse sliding strength. The infill can be applied in newly designed or rehabilitated buildings. Such buildings can easily conform to the new version of codes, with more restricting criteria for seismic design, by regulating the infills for higher strengths, estimated by the proposed formula presented in this paper.