Steel Frame Masonry Infill Building

[Hunt007]

I'm currently designing a rigid steel frame building, single story, and masonry infill is required. The masonry is mainly for sound damping purposes and not for strength. The building is 35' wide, and 55' long, with an eave height of 24'. There is no bracing or horizontal members to transfer loads in between the 4 frames. As a result of no bracing, the deflections are getting quite large. The effective length of the columns is actually 48'.

Would it be more effective to model the masonry wall as a shear wall to transfer forces from each frame? If so, is there any literature on masonry/steel connection?

Or should I design a bracing system so the entire frame resists all the loads, and the masonry don't contribute any strength.

As you can tell this is my first time I've worked with both a steel frame and masonry infill.

Any insight would be appreciated.

 

[Lion06]

When you say the deflections are getting quite large, do you mean the drift?
If you have a 24' eave height and a kl of 48', the columns must be assumed fixed-free?
I would consider trying to tie the masonry walls into the diaphragm. You could probably get them to work with very minimal reinforcing if you can use a decent length of wall.
Doing that should also allow you to cut down on the k-factor for your columns somewhat.

 

[jike]

The first thing that I would ask, is can you eliminate the columns and make the walls load bearing shear walls?

 

[Hunt007]

I was speaking of lateral drift. The columns are considered free(bottom) and fixed(top).

There is no horizontal actual diaphragm, only the roof rafters, which is not an actual truss, just w-sections. The building is like this to accommodate a crane.

The building cannot be pure masonry, it has to be a steel frame with masonry infill.

I did get permission to link the frames together with members along the eave, and that did bring the drift under control.