A study of advanced composite multi-infill panels for seismic retrofitting

In this paper, a conceptual design, fabrication, and testing of the advanced Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) infill system are addressed as a seismic retrofit strategy. Such a system is designed to have PMC multi-infill panels with passive energy mechanism. The basic configuration of this system is composed of two separate components - namely, an inner PMC sandwich panel and outer damping panels. The inner PMC sandwich infill consists of two fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) laminates with an infill of Divincell® H core, and outer damping panels are made of FRP laminate plates and passive energy constrained damping layers - combining polymer honeycomb and 3M viscoelastic solid materials - at the interface between the laminates. The interaction of these two components may produce considerable stiffness and enhanced damping properties in the structure following different drift level. As lateral drift increases, the FRP outer damping panels are designed to produce the damping through the cyclic shear straining of the combined interface damping layers. Otherwise, after the specified lateral drift of the contact, a PMC sandwich infill is designed conceptually to provide considerable lateral stiffness to resist severe earthquake excitation and avoid excessive relative floor displacements that causes both structural and non-structural damage. As part of this research, analytical and experimental studies were performed to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed multi-infill panel concept. The prefabricated multi-panel PMC infill holds a great promise for enhanced damping performance, the simplification of the construction process, and the reduction of time and cost when used for seismic retrofitting applications.