Development of Cyclic Stress-Strain Curves for Modified Rat-Trap Bond Concrete Brick Masonry from Experimental Investigations

Abstract

Abstract: Present study is based upon the experimental results obtained by reloading and unloading of concrete brick masonry samples constructed in modified rat-trap bond under uniaxial compression perpendicular to their bed joints. Considering the advantage of air gap between perpends for thermal comfort, Flemish bond was modified as rat-trap bond using half scale modular bricks (95mm × 95mm × 45mm) and called Modified Rat-Trap bond concrete brick masonry. The air gap created within the wall was filled up with insulating material thermocol (Expanded polystyrene). General polynomial expression has been developed for both reloading and unloading curves separately which were found suitable to predict the behavior of said masonry at any given residual strain. With the help of this parent polynomial, the particular reloading and unloading curves are then developed by transferring the parent equation to stress-strain coordinate. It was observed that the nature of reloading and unloading curves is primarily influenced by plastic strain. A fair consistency was observed between the experimental and computed curves. Keywords: Uniaxial, Perpend, Wallet, Monotonic, Common Point, Stability Point,