The behaviour of RC frames with masonry infill in Wenchuan Earthquake

The Wenchuan Earthquake, with a moment magnitude of 7.9 (reported by USGS), occurred in Sichuan Province in China on May 12, 2008. As of July 2, 2008 69,195 people were killed, 373,606 injured, 18,389 missing, 5 million homeless and 79,852 rescued. A team of eight researchers from Melbourne and Hong Kong, including the first-named author, visited China in late June-early July 2008 to visit the cities of Chengdu, Dujiangyang, Yingxiu and Mianyang to investigate the effect of this earthquake. A common form of construction in the affected area is that of reinforced concrete frames with masonry infill. A PhD research project is currently being undertaken at the University of Melbourne on the behaviour of this type of construction when subjected to seismic loads. This paper focuses specifically on observations made on this type of construction during the visit to Sichuan with identification of damage and of key failure modes. This will be related to the damage and failure modes observed in past earthquakes and in experimental work; hence placing the observations from the Sichuan earthquake into the context of previous reconnaissance and research.