Rob van der Pluijm1, and Alexander Vermeersch2
1) International Product Manager, Wienerberger A.G.
Wienerbergerstrasse 11, A-1100, Vienna (AT),
rob.van.der.pluijm@wienerberger.com
2) Product Manager Standardization, Wienerberger N.V.
Kapel Ter Bede 121, 8500 Kortrijk (BE),
alexander.vermeersch@wienerberger.com
Keywords: Cavity wall, thin outer leave, arching, lateral load, bearing capacity
Abstract. Due to increasing demands on energy savings towards a level of the so-called nearly zero energy house, thermal insulation of walls must increase. To provide room for more insulation in cavity walls, the thickness of the outer leave of a cavity wall may be reduced from the traditional width (90 to 105 mm in Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) towards 65 mm without the need to increase the overall wall thickness. The influence of a change from a 100 mm outer leave towards a 65 mm outer leave on the lateral load bearing capacity was studied experimentally. The experimental setup simulated a vertical spanning cavity wall with the inner leave built in between concrete floor slabs. The outer leaves (65 or 100 mm thick) was connected to the inner leave with 5 wall ties per m2 having a diameter of 4 mm. Due to arching of the inner leave, the lateral load bearing capacity of the cavity wall was not affected by the application of the thin outer leave compared to a traditional outer leave.