Experimental investigation of AAC masonry walls reinforced with steel wire mesh embedded in bed and bed-head joint under axial compressive loading

Abstract

Masonry buildings are the most common building type in Northeast India. For the last 4–5 years, low strength Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks have been widely used in most new construction. Masonry buildings are fragile and sustain significant damage when subjected to seismic excitation due to their low tensile strength and lack of earthquake-resistant features. Steel wire mesh is a low-cost, readily available material that is commonly adopted to strengthened unreinforced masonry by wrapping the entire surface of the wall. However, it is very un-economical in large scale construction. Embedding steel wire mesh to the bed and bed-head joint mortar of low-strength masonry units, such as AAC, has received little attention and possibly act as an earthquake-resistant feature in masonry buildings. The present study attempts to investigate the compression behaviour of AAC masonry walls when embedding three different types of steel wire mesh. The steel wire mesh was embedded using two methods, i.e., embedding steel wire into the masonry bed joint and the masonry bed-head joint. Three strengthening configurations were adopted for both the method and all three types of steel wire mesh, i.e., (−) straight configuration, L configuration, and Z configuration. The test result indicated that the inclusion of steel wire mesh in the masonry bed joint and bed-head joint enhanced the failure patterns, axial load-carrying capacity, stiffness, ductility, and energy dissipation for both strengthening methods, with bed-head joint specimens outperforming bed-joint and URM masonry.