Generally the non-bearing walls in apartment buildings in Korea are not considered as a lateral force resisting members for the design consideration. This engineering practice caused large crack damages and brittle fractures of the non-bearing walls when subjected to Pohang earthquakes in 2017 since those have not been designed for seismic loading. In this study, finite element analysis was conducted for slot type non-bearing wall connection system to reduce damages and concentrate damages to the designated damping device through separation from the structural wall members. Steel plate and dowel bar systems designed for the dissipation of seismic energies were modeled and analyzed to investigate the damage reductions. Finally, the test result and the analysis result were compared and verified.

This study introduces a newly developed PC non-bearing wall system to prevent the damage of RC wall-type apartments that have been heavily damaged by the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. In order to evaluate the performance of the developed PC non-bearing wall system, a static cyclic test is conducted. The prototype of test specimen is from the RC wall-type apartment which has been severely damaged by the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. The specimen with the conventional non-bearing wall system showed the similar damage of RC wall type apartment suffered from the Pohang Earthquake. In case of the specimen with the developed PC non-bearing wall system, cracks and damages were not transmitted between the walls due to the seismic slit and there were almost no cracks in the non-bearing walls. Therefore, the proposed non-bearing wall system, separated from the structural walls, could prevent spreading cracks to bearing walls and make it possible to effectively control damage due to earthquake loads.

This study was carried out to examine the effect of the presence of non-structural walls in apartment buildings subjected to an earthquake. It was believed that the presence of non-structural walls, which has not been considered in the structural design process, was usually built together with structural walls and this led to significant damages to the apartment buildings in Pohang earthquake, 2017. In this study, a 22-story apartment building was selected and modeled to simulate the seismic behavior due to earthquakes. The story drift, performance point, and compressive strain in the walls were the main parameters to evaluate the seismic performance with the presence of non-structural walls.

In Korea, most existing school buildings have been constructed with moment frames with un-reinforced infill walls designed only considering gravity loads. Thus, the buildings may not perform satisfactorily during earthquakes expected in Korea. In exterior frames of the building, un-reinforced masonry infill walls with window openings are commonly placed, which may alter the structural behavior of adjacent columns due to the interaction between the wall and column. The objective of this study is to evaluate the seismic performance of existing school buildings according to the procedure specified in ATC 63. Analytical models are proposed to simulate the structural behavior of columns, infill walls and their interaction. The accuracy of the proposed model is verified by comparing the analytical results with the experimental test results for one bay frames with and without infill walls with openings. For seismic performance evaluation, three story buildings are considered as model frames located at sites having different soil conditions ( ,  ,  ,  ,  ) in Korea. It is observed that columns behaves as a short columns governed by shear due to infill masonry walls with openings. The collapse probabilities of the frames under maximum considered earthquake ranges from 62.9 to 99.5 %, which far exceed the allowable value specified in ATC 63.

철근콘크리트 건축물에서 비내력벽(Masonry Infill Walls)은 내부 칸막이벽이나 중저층 규모의 건물 외벽에 흔히 사용된다. 그렇지만 대부분의 경우에 비내력벽은 비구조체이므로 구조설계시 건물의 모형화에서 무시된다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 비내력벽을 보편화된 모형화 방법인 등가의 대각 압축 스트럿(Equivalent Diagonal Strut)으로 고려하여 비내력벽의 유무에 따른 저층 철근콘크리트 건축물의 전체적인 지진거동의 양상을 평가하고자 하였다. 해석결과로 비내력벽을 고려하면 시스템의 추가적인 강도 및 강성을 확보하여 층간변위비를 줄일 수 있으나 진동주기가 짧아져서 설계단계에서 고려한 지진하중보다 큰 하중을 받게 된다. 연약층이 있는 모델의 경우에는 기둥에 소성거동이 집중됨을 알 수 있으며 부분적인 붕괴가 전체 시스템의 붕괴 원인의 가능성을 가진다.