Seismic Performance Target and Fragility of Masonry Infilled RC Frames under In-Plane Loading

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, an extensive database of experimental tests on infilled RC frames loaded in in-plane direction are collected. Damage criteria is proposed, and the seismic performance targets for the four stages are suggested. Finally, the proposed seismic performance target is utilized to analyze the fragility of two masonry infilled RC frame structures. This is a meaningful research, but some modifications are suggested.

1. It may be more appropriate to change the title to “Seismic performance target and fragility of masonry infilled RC frames under in-plane loading”.

2. It seems that “The damage process is divided into four stages” is more appropriate. Please check the full manuscript.

3. For lines 76 to 90, a clearer expression is suggested.

4. In line 72, “different damage stages” is suggested to be changed to “four damage stages”.

5. For lines 114 to 121, it is recommended to give the number of test specimens for each damage state and the specific number of excluded specimens.

6. At the beginning of Section 3.2, it should be stated that IDR is a suitable index for reflecting damage state.

7. From lines 135 to 141, some discussion about the relationship between the average of IDR and miu(μ) is suggested.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper “In-plane seismic performance target and fragility of masonry in-filled RC frame” concerns research work about the influence of the in-filled masonry walls in the seismic vulnerability of the reinforced concrete frame structures focusing attention on the damage states of the non-structural in-filled masonry walls. The authors define four different damage states based on the inter-story drift ratio. The approach is applied to two case studies performing incremental dynamic analysis using OpenSees software. In general, the manuscript is well-organized in its Sections and the results obtained from the execution of the numerical analyses are clearly discussed in the text. For these reasons it is opinion of this reviewer that the manuscript can be considered for the publication in Buildings Journal, after the following minor corrections/improvements:

-         line 122: the Table is the 4 not the 3;

-         line 118: change the “D” of Due in lowercase letter;

-         lines 170-171: better described the Pinching4 material model shown in Figure 5;

-         Section 5 conclusions better highlight the original aspects of the work;

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.