Experimental study on seismic behavior of recycled concrete hollow block masonry walls

Abstract

The low-cyclic reversed loading tests of 3 pieces of recycled concrete hollow block masonry walls were conducted under different vertical loads. The deformation behaviors, failure mechanism, and loading capacity of the walls were studied. The Seismic behaviors, such as hysteretic characteristics, skeleton curve, ductility and energy, were analyzed. The results showed that recycled concrete hollow block masonry walls without vertical load had a little crack at failure, but the main crack was obvious. The walls with vertical load had not obvious main crack at failure and were uniformly forced. The hysteresis curve of the walls was plump. They had a good ductility, a strong energy dissipation capacity and a well seismic performance. The trend of stiffness degradation was similar; that is, the initial stiffness of the walls was high, and after crack the stiffness degradation was rapid. The seismic performance of recycled concrete hollow block masonry walls was equivalent to average concrete hollow block masonry walls.