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K.C. Voon1 and J.M. Ingham2

  1. PhD student, Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand, kvoo002@ec.auckland.ac.nz
  2. Senior Lecturer, Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, j.ingham@auckland.ac.nz

ABSTRACT

Masonry shear walls have attracted the attention of many researchers because of their role as lateral force resisting elements. However, most of this research was carried out to study the behaviour of solid masonry shear walls, despite the fact that masonry walls are commonly constructed with openings. Consequently, eight partially grout-filled nominally reinforced concrete masonry walls with openings were tested under cyclic lateral loading at the University of Auckland. These walls had variations in lintel reinforcement detailing, and a range of opening geometries. The objectives of this research were to study the performance of concrete masonry walls with openings under seismic loading conditions and to validate the adequacy of NZS 4229:1999 in addressing the bracing capacity of these types of masonry walls. It was shown that NZS 4229:1999 unsafely over-predicts the strength capacity of concrete masonry wall with small opening. However, the conservatism of NZS 4229:1999 was shown to increase when the depth of openings increased. Furthermore, an analysis method based on strut-and-tie models was shown to be viable for the design of nominally reinforced masonry walls with openings.

KEYWORDS: concrete masonry, reinforced, partially-grouted, openings, cyclic loading

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