1 Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, elsayemm@mcmaster.ca
2 Martini Mascarin and George Chair in Masonry Design, Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, eldak@mcmaster.ca
3 Chair in Heavy Construction and Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, razavi@mcmaster.ca
4 Technical Expert, AMEC NSS, Toronto, ON, M5G 1X6, Canada, waleed.mekky@amec.com
5 Joe NG/JNE Consulting Chair in Design, Construction and Management in Infrastructure Renewal, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada, taitm@mcmaster.ca
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on estimating the damage levels and evaluating the out-of-plane behaviour of fully-grouted reinforced masonry shear walls when subjected to blast loading. Three third-scale reinforced concrete masonry walls with typical dimensions of 1m x 1m, which were designed based on the Canadian Standards CSA S304.1-04, were tested using different weights of live explosives. The vertical reinforcement ratio was the same for all three studied specimens. However, three different explosive charges were used to experimentally evaluate the three wall performance and damage levels. In general, the results show that reinforced masonry walls, even with low reinforcement ratios, can withstand substantial blast load levels with minor damage. The test results are expected to contribute to the growing masonry blast performance database that will facilitate possible changes to the current blast resistant construction standards CSA S850-12. These findings are also expected to significantly influence the development of masonry design approaches under blast loading, while maintaining the advantage of simplicity and cost effectiveness of such a construction system.
KEYWORDS: blast loading, blast scaling, experimental results, flexural resistance, out-of-plane capacity, reinforced concrete masonry, shear walls
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