Two-Way Cavity Clay Brick Masonry Walls Tested In-Situ

Abstract eng:
This research is aimed at producing experimental data in relation to the out-of-plane behavior of two-way spanning unreinforced clay brick cavity walls, which is currently a significant area of shortcoming in seismic assessment of masonry buildings. Destructive out-of-plane airbag tests were conducted on a total of 10 two-way spanning walls (6 cavity, 4 solid) and 1 vertically spanning cavity wall in 3 low-rise properties located in Darlington, South Australia. The load was applied on the face of one leaf and the lateral displacements of both wall leaves were measured. Companion material testing was done both in-situ and in laboratory to aid in the calculation of theoretical wall strength. It was observed that the as-built cavity wall ties possessed significant compressive strength that maintained the cavity by promoting two-way out-of-plane mechanism in the unloaded wall leaf, i.e. the wall ties strength often exceeded single-leaf two-way spanning wall strength. Calculations showed that the strength of cavity walls as a whole exceeded the theoretical calculations made based on an idealized method available in seismic codes. The underestimation of the wall strength by codes and analytical studies were attributed to factors that included ignoring wall rendering and potentially conservatisms associated with the formulation of the methods.

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