Shady Salem, Mohamed Ezzeldin, Wael El-Dakhakhni and Michael Tait
Shady Salem, Lecturer, Civil Engineering Department, The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, Shady.Salem@Bue.edu.eg
Mohamed Ezzeldin, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, ezzeldms@mcmaster.ca
Wael El-Dakhakhni, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, eldak@mcmaster.ca
Michael Tait, Professor, Department of of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, taitm@mcmaster.ca
ABSTRACT
The increases in accidental explosion events over the past two decades have demonstrated the urgent need to evaluate the behavior of blast-vulnerable structural components and develop
subsequent risk mitigation strategies. In this context, several studies have focused on the out-ofplane behavior of either unreinforced masonry walls or non-load-bearing reinforced masonry shear walls (RMSW). However, to date, a limited number of studies have been conducted on the interaction between the axial load and out-of-plane demands (e.g. when subjected to blast loads)
on such walls. As such, the current study focuses on investigating the out-of-plane behavior of seismically-detailed load-bearing RMSW with different designs. Experimental results of three
scaled RMSW, with different axial stress levels, subjected to out-of-plane loading are presented. These results include the wall damage sequence, load-displacement response, stiffness degradation and energy dissipation. The current study extends the database of experimental results pertaining to load-bearing RMSW, to facilitate the development of relevant provisions within the next
editions of relevant blast design standards.
KEYWORDS: axial load, blast, experimental resistance functions, out-of-plane, reinforced masonry
