Brick Size Effect on Cyclic Behavior of Unreinforced Masonry Walls based on Experimental Results

Recent earthquakes have shown that existing masonry structures exhibit poor seismic behavior and sustain significant damages. An important factor in behavior of such structures is size effect, which include not only wall dimensions but also size of brick. To investigate the effect of brick size on lateral behavior, an experimental study has been carried out including cyclic lateral loading of three brick walls. The specimens have different aspect ratios of 0.5, 0.7 and 1.1 and consist of traditional brick units. The results have been compared with tests of three other specimens with the same dimensions, aspect ratios and loading but with reduced size of bricks to 1:2. The results showed that for the specimens with aspect ratio of 0.5, increasing brick size will result in change of failure mode from sliding to diagonal sliding, same initial stiffness, but 20% increase in ultimate strength, and noticeable growth in energy dissipation and ductility. This paper describes the test program results.

Keywords:

URM Wall , Seismic Evaluation , In-plane Behavior , Brick Size Effect