Author
J VACULIK1 and M C GRIFFITH2
1PhD student, Dept of Civil & Env. Eng., University of Adelaide, jvaculik@civeng.adelaide.edu.au
2Associate Professor, Dept of Civil & Env. Eng., University of Adelaide, mcgrif@civeng.adelaide.edu.au

Abstract
This paper presents the results of quasi-static cyclic tests on eight full-scale unreinforced clay brick masonry walls. The wall configurations were chosen to be representative of typical construction and were supported along both vertical edges by short return walls that provided horizontal bending moment restraint to the test walls. Three different levels of vertical pre-compression were used in the tests and all walls were 2.5m tall with six being 4m long and two being 2.5m long. Six of the eight walls also contained a window opening which was positioned unsymmetrically in the longer walls. The walls were loaded using a system of airbags placed between the wall and reaction frames located on the inside and outside faces of each wall. From the resulting load-deflection plots the cyclic strength, strength degradation, inelastic displacement capacity and energy dissipation characteristics were determined.