Seismic behavior and shear strength of new-type fired perforated brick walls with high void ratio

Abstract

A new type of fired perforated brick with void ratio of more than 30% has been developed to improve the applicability of brick masonry structures. When the new perforated bricks are used for load-bearing walls, it will be a question whether the seismic performance of walls could satisfy the requirements under not obviously increasing the cost. This article presents an experimental study to investigate the seismic behavior and shear capacity of new-type perforated brick walls with high void ratio. For this purpose, six cross walls and three longitudinal walls with constructional columns under low reversed cyclic loading were tested, and the failure patterns, hysteretic characteristics, skeleton curves, energy dissipation capacity, ductility and reinforcement strain were observed. The test results indicate that (1) most new-type perforated brick wall specimens display shear failure, and hysteretic curves of cross walls are plump while there is some pinch phenomenon for longitudinal walls; (2) the specimens have considerable deformation and energy dissipation capacity, with displacement ductility factors of over 2.0; (3) the bearing capacity of walls increases but the ductility decreases with an increase of vertical compressive stress, and the bearing capacity and deformation all increase while considering the effect of horizontal reinforcement; and (4) the central brick wall and construction columns could resist shear force together before the peak load, while the shear force would be mainly born by construction columns at the later loading stage. Based on the test results, the constraint coefficient in current Chinese code was modified, and the calculation formula of shear capacity for cross walls was proposed. Comparison of calculated results with test data shows that the method will provide a way to predict the shear capacity of new-type fired perforated brick walls.