In-Plane and Out-Of Plane Response of a Reinforced Masonry Infill Made By An Innovative New Brick Unit


Abstract eng:
Within the framework of INSYSME project (www.insysme.eu ) [1], an innovative solution for infill walls has been developed by the authors and the firm XALKIS S.A. A special, vertically perforated, brick unit has been designed and produced. Vertical holes are located close to the faces of the masonry unit, to serve two needs, namely (a) the enhancement of the out-of-plane bearing capacity of the infill, using vertical reinforcement and (b) the positioning of installations (electrical and plumping). In the current practice of infill wall construction in Greece, all facilities are installed on the walls by forming the necessary recesses through breaking of the clay units. Such a (quite extensive, even though local) intervention is avoided, thanks to the use of the designed clay unit. It should be noted that the vertical reinforcement is positioned only to a limited number of vertical holes along the infill wall, as the required percentage of reinforcement is rather small. Therefore, the brick was constructed not to have open vertical holes close to the faces of the infill, because they should be filled with mortar to reach a plane surface of the wall before plastering. However, in order to facilitate both the positioning of vertical reinforcement and the installation of facilities, the exterior shell of each vertical hole is provided with two grooves that make the exterior brick wall easy to remove during construction. The horizontal reinforcement of the infill is positioned in the bed joints during the construction of the wall, whereas the vertical reinforcement is placed (in the special vertical holes) after the construction of the wall. Additionally, simple sliding connectors between the infill and the beam above it may be used to prevent out-of-plane collapse, if needed. It should be noted that the reinforcement (either horizontal or vertical) is not anchored into the RC elements. In order to assess the performance of the proposed solution, an experimental campaign is carried out on a one-bay singlestorey RC infilled frame. Two full scale specimens are tested. The first is subjected to in-plane cyclic tests, whereas for the second one repeated out-of-plane test are performed. Hysteresis loops for the entire loading history, the observed damage at several drift values and the maximum resistance of the infill are presented and discussed upon. The obtained results are compared to the results recorded during testing of the infills currently used in Greece. It is shown that the performance of the innovative solution minimizes damage risk and human lives risk, as it ensures a significantly enhanced behaviour of the RC-infilled frame in terms of both load and deformability capacity.

Contributors:
Conference Title:
Conference Title:
16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering
Conference Venue:
Santiago (CL)
Conference Dates:
2017-01-09 / 2017-01-13
Rights:
Text je chráněný podle autorského zákona č. 121/2000 Sb.



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 Record created 2017-01-18, last modified 2017-01-18


Original version of the author's contribution as presented on USB, paper 3048.:
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