TOTOEV, YURI1; WILLIAMSON, DANNY2; WANG, ZHIYU 3

1) Dr, The University of Newcastle, Centre for Infrastructure Performance and Reliability, yuri.totoev@newcastle.edu.au

2) Mr, Graduate Engineer, Parsons-Brinckerhoff Pty Ltd, Newcastle, Australia, WilliamsonD@pbworld.com

3) Mrs, The University of Newcastle, School of Engineering, zhiyu.wang@uon.edu.au

A new masonry system is being developed at the University of Newcastle. It uses masonry panels made of dry stack semi-interlocking masonry (SIM) units capable of relative sliding in-plane of a wall and interlocked to prevent sliding out-of-plane of a wall. The major objective for developing this new masonry system is to improve the earthquake performance of framed structures with masonry panels acting as energy dissipation devices (EDD). An experimental program was carried out to evaluate the behaviour of different framed masonry panels. It was found that SIM panels have significant energy dissipation capacity (up to 17% damping) due to friction between masonry units. This paper presents results of a numerical simulation of earthquake vibrations on a multi-storey RC frame infilled with SIM panels and compares it to vibrations of the same frame with traditional masonry panels. It was concluded that SIM panels could improve earthquake resistance of structural frames.

Keywords: Dry stack, interlocking, masonry, infill, confined, EDD