Parametric study of reinforced interlocking brick wall under cyclic loading

Abstract

Mortarless interlocking brick walls are a new form of masonry structures that can be efficiently constructed. In this study, a detailed numerical model of an interlocking brick wall under quasi-static in-plane cyclic loading is generated and verified with laboratory test data. The influence of the vertical reinforcement placement methods, i.e., grouted vs. unbonded, and the influence of wall-to-brick size ratio are firstly investigated. Parametric studies are then carried out to quantify the influences of axial precompression level, shear span ratio and friction coefficient between bricks on the lateral load-carrying capacity, deformation capacity, and energy dissipation capability of the studied mortarless interlocking brick walls subjected to in-plane cyclic loading with analytical equations summarised for predicting the resistance performance of this type of mortarless interlocking brick walls under in-plane cyclic loading.