Heavy and light masonry walls impact on medium height reinforced concrete frames buildings

The paper studies the influence of light weight aerated autoclaved concrete (AAC) partitioning walls to a medium height reinforced concrete structure, in Bucharest (Romania). The building is designed as a framed structure with non-bearing AAC walls placed in certain bays. There is a bearing full bricks masonry wall in one of the bays. Full bricks are used because of its high strength compared to AAC. The aim is to determine the importance of the masonry walls placement, both full bricks and AAC, for the building's behavior. The analysis points out the structure's elastic and plastic behavior and also the efforts developed in the non-bearing walls. The bearing masonry wall's behavior is very important, because the structure is built in a high seismic area. To extend the study, the full bricks wall is replaced with a reinforced concrete one. This is done to see how it impacts the building's behavior, for both the elastic and plastic stage. The paper concludes that AAC, full bricks and concrete walls placements have a significant influence on the structure.