Ece1 Erdogmus, Hélène Dutrisac, Jason Thompson and Bennett Banting
Ece1 Erdogmus, Professor, Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1110 S. 67th Street, Omaha, NE 68182, eerdogmus2@unl.edu
Hélène Dutrisac, Formerly of Canada Masonry Design Centre, 360 Superior Blvd., Mississauga, ON, Canada, helene.dutrisac@gmail.com
Jason Thompson, Vice President of Engineering, National Concrete Masonry Association, 13750 Sunrise Valley Drive, Herndon, VA, U.S.A, jthompson@ncma.org
Bennett Banting, Director of Technical Services, Canada Masonry Design Centre, 360 Superior Blvd., Mississauga, ON, Canada,
Bbanting@canadamasonrycentre.com
ABSTRACT
A Canada-U.S. collaborative project titled “CANUS: Harmonization of Canadian and American Masonry Structures Design Standards Project” was established in 2019 to highlight key
similarities and differences with the design of reinforced masonry between the two countries. The initiative was funded jointly by the National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) foundation, Canadian Concrete Masonry Producers Association (CCMPA), Canada Masonry Design Centre (CMDC), and Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The overarching goal of the CANUS research program is to improve and harmonize, to the extent possible, masonry design provisions in both countries as well as to identify future research needs towards that goal. This paper is one of five companion papers and provides a comparison of selected key design provisions and material properties, while other papers quantify the differences between the two standards through parametric studies or design examples. While the comparison revealed similar design equations and approaches in the two standards, significant differences in specified masonry compressive
strength, cross-sectional properties, and reduction factors (strength and material) were noted. Given similarly constructed masonry structures have performed well in the U.S. for many years, opportunities to relax some of the more stringent requirements in the future editions of CSA S304 have been identified. In contrast, gaps that need to be covered in future editions of the TMS 402 standard have been identified in light of the more comprehensively addressed design topics in CSA S304-14.
KEYWORDS: reinforced masonry design, masonry codes, limit state design, strength design, CSA S304, TMS 402
