In skeleton structures, separate non- structural masonry walls by joints!
In flexible skeleton structures, it can be beneficial to separate non-strucutral partition walls from the structure by soft joints. This is particularly true for inplane stiff and brittle masonry walls.This way, damage occuring even for weak earthquakes can be prevented.The joints run along columns, structural walls, and slabs, or beams and must be filled by a very flexible soundproof material, e.g. boards of soft rubber. Styrofoam, cork, etc. are too stiff in this case. The necessary joint thickness (typically 20 to 40 mm) depends on the stiffness of the structure and the deformation sensitivity of the partition walls as well as the desired protection level (damage limit state earthquake < design earthquake). Generally the partition walls must also be secured against out of-plane actions (plate effect), e.g. by support angles.
