Shear Behaviour of Historic Masonry Made of Clay Bricks

R. Capozucca

doi:10.2174/1874836801105010089

Abstract

Historic masonry walls have demonstrated high vulnerability and low shear capacity when exposed to seismic actions. The behaviour of historic un-reinforced masonry (HURM) walls under combined compression and shear loading plays a fundamental role in the seismic verification of masonry buildings. Experimental investigations on historic ma- sonry were carried out by the author on shear walls and triplets built with full clay bricks in scale 1:3 rd to establish the shear behaviour of HURM walls. On the basis of experimental research, a shear criterion for HURM has been assumed. It appears that the shear strength of masonry increases with the pre-compression up to a limit and becomes constant at higher pre-compression. Finally, the experimental load-deflection relationship and cracking distribution along the surface of the shear walls have been compared with the theoretical results obtained by a non linear FE analysis of HURM walls and a good co-relation was found between them.

Highlights

INTRODUCTIONA huge cultural heritage is preserved in the form of historic masonry buildings
In many countries, a huge cultural heritage is preserved in the form of historic masonry buildings
This paper presents main results obtained by an extensive experimental program to study the ultimate shear strength of a historic masonry subjected to pre-compression

Summary

INTRODUCTION

A huge cultural heritage is preserved in the form of historic masonry buildings. The model was in 1:6thscale subjected to raking load with varying degree of pre-compression They proposed a three phase shear failure criterion based on experimental results due to different mechanisms: shear slip at the interface up to a limit of pre-compression; diagonal tensile failure of masonry for a certain range of pre-compression; solely frictional phase limited by the compressive strength of the masonry. The ASTM [23] recommends testing square wall specimen in diagonal compression to obtain the shear strength This type of test does not appear useful to describe the actual behaviour of HURM since the test results are affected significantly by the size of the specimen, as shown in Fig. Triplets mortar (cement:lime:sand) compressive strength of mortar tensile strength by bending of mortar(N/mm2)

Discussion of Experimental Results

CONCLUSIONS