Typhoon-Resistant Performance Assessment of Coastal Rural Residential Keel Brick Walls Reinforced with High Ductility Concrete

Abstract

The keel brick wall belongs to the rural residential exterior wall unique to the southeast coastal region of China. The wooden keel inside the wall and the external tie members can improve the stability of the whole wall. However, due to the age of construction, the wooden keel inside the existing residential keel brick walls has basically rotted and lost the tie with the external members, which seriously reduces the stability of the whole wall. Moreover, the collapse of keel brick walls caused by typhoons has become more and more frequent in recent years, seriously endangering the lives and properties of residents. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out reinforcement and repair for the existing residential buildings with keel brick walls. In this paper, the keel brick walls of rural houses in Ningbo area were taken as the research object, a framework for evaluating the performance of keel brick walls against typhoons was established, tests on the lateral force resistance of keel brick walls reinforced with high ductility concrete and mortar were carried out. With the help of typhoon full-track simulation and wind field simulation technology, the 600-year near-surface typhoon wind speeds affecting Ningbo area were obtained. A joint probability distribution model of multi-directional extreme wind speed was constructed using t-Copula function to determine the mixed wind climate of Ningbo area. The extreme wind loads that keel brick walls can withstand under four types of reinforcement were finally given. The results show that the high ductility concrete reinforcement has great advantages over mortar reinforcement and avoids brittle damage of the masonry structure. The keel brick walls reinforced with single-sided mortar can withstand wind loads of a 3-year return period, the keel brick walls reinforced with single-sided high ductile concrete can withstand extreme wind loads of a 110-year return period, while the keel brick walls reinforced with double-sided mortar as well as double-sided high ductile concrete can withstand extreme wind loads of well over a 110-year return period.