International Journal of Engineering and Technology

Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) material was introduced as a new conceptual infill construction for seismic retrofitting. A proposed PMC-infilled system was composed of two basic structural components: inner PMC-infilled sandwich and outer FRP damping panels designed to constrain the energy-dissipating layers. These two components along with the steel frame were intended for providing the desired stiffness and damping following different drift values. The observed behavior of the proposed PMC-infilled system was evaluated experimentally based on the stiffness, the mode of failure and the energy dissipation outputs. In this study, a piece-wise linear dynamic analysis for a proposed PMC-infilled frame was performed according to the previous research, for the assessment of their effectiveness and the responses under the simulated earthquake loading. Upon comparing the results of undamped (without PMC panel) and damped (with PMC panel) structures, numerical results showed that structural damping with passive interface damping layer could significantly enhance the seismic response. Furthermore, the numerical simulation response showed that the response of the equivalent linearized model produces more conservative results, in comparison to the response of piece wise linear model.