Experimental Study of Seismic Behaviour of Typical Iranian URM Brick Walls

Abstract eng:
Lack of integrity and ductility are two main reasons for seismic vulnerability of un-reinforced masonry (URM) walls and buildings. Constructing the walls without head joint is another reason for the low seismic behaviour of URM walls and buildings around the world and Iran. For evaluating the seismic behaviour of URM walls, some approximate analytical approaches as finite elements, discrete elements, equivalent frame and simple guideline methods are available in literature. But for calibrating the above approaches and study of the seismic performance of typical URM walls, the experimental data was needed. In this paper firstly, experimental data of prism test, flexural tension test and diagonalcompression test of typical brick wall samples were performed. Then the experimental results of the cyclic test on one solid and two perforated URM walls, with dimensions of 315*270*20.5 cm, are presented. These results show although lateral capacity of the walls is decreased due to openings, but the possibility of changing the wall behaviour from shear sliding in solid wall to the rocking mode in perforated walls, is caused the ductility of the perforated walls No.2 and No.3 to be increased about 2.7 and 3.5 times higher than the solid wall, respectively. Increasing the ductility of URM walls is caused the seismic behaviour of URM buildings to be increased. Experimental set-up and the results obtained during testing is the main contribution of this paper which will be discussed in details.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket