PSI - Issue 78

Mariano Di Domenico et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 1237–1244

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Fig. 4. Average and percentiles of the normalized ejected volume and ejection distance for all the case-study buildings. Blue lines: infills w/o openings; red lines: infills w/ openings. Thin lines: 3 storey buildings; thick lines: 6 storey buildings. Continuous lines: 50s buildings; dashed lines: 70s buildings; dotted lines: 90s buildings.

The 84th percentile of debris volume reaches about 50% of the total façade infill volume. For ejection distance, the 84th percentile reaches up to 20% of the building height for older buildings and 50% for newer ones. It is important to clarify that the 84th percentile of δ does not correspond to the farthest possible debris particle, but to the farthest maximum accumulation point found in 84% of the records. This distinction means that the value is not the outermost debris extent, but rather a statistical upper bound on the zone where most debris tends to concentrate. 5. Conclusions This study investigated the generation of debris caused by the out-of-plane collapse of exterior masonry infill walls in existing reinforced concrete (RC) frame buildings subjected to seismic events. Through nonlinear dynamic analyses, the research quantified both the expected volume of debris and its ejection distance from the building façade across increasing levels of seismic intensity.