Mechanical characterization of concrete block used on infill masonry panels

Abstract

Purpose

The infill masonry walls in recent worldwide earthquakes have shown that it is necessary to conduct further studies to characterize the behavior of existing buildings and, in particular, of infill masonry walls under seismic activity. The lack of characterization studies of infill walls made by concrete blocks justifies the investigation reported herein, which includes experimental tests on sample sets to evaluate the mechanical properties of masonry components (units and mortar) and assemblages (wallets) made with masonry units from Faial. For the later, normal compressive, diagonal tensile/shear and out-of-plane flexural strengths were obtained according to standard procedures, the results of which are presented in the manuscript. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

One experimental campaign was conducted with the aim to mechanically characterize concrete blocks masonry samples. Several experimental tests were carried out in full-scale masonry concrete wallets according to the constructive methodology used.

Findings

Based on the data obtained from the mechanical characterization tests of the concrete masonry blocks, it can be seen that under simple compression, the masonry specimens’ average resistance is about 6 times superior than the average resistance to diagonal shear/tension, while the stiffness is almost doubled. In simple compression tests, it was observed that the masonry specimens cracked in areas of higher drilling of the blocks. In the tensile tests by diagonal compression, it was found that the test specimens were mainly fissured by the block/mortar joint interfaces, following the delineation of settlement and top joints.

Originality/value

There are no experimental results available in the literature for this type of bricks that can contribute to the development of numerical studies.

Citation

Raposo, P., Furtado, A., Arêde, A., Varum, H. and Rodrigues, H. (2018), "Mechanical characterization of concrete block used on infill masonry panels", International Journal of Structural Integrity, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 281-295. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSI-05-2017-0030