ABO EL EZZ, AHMAD1; SEIF ELDIN, HANY2; GALAL, KHALED3

1) Postdoctoral Research Associate, Concordia University, Building, Civil and Environmental Eng., aboelezz@gmail.com

2) PhD Candidate, Concordia University, Building, Civil and Environmental Eng., h_seif@encs.concordia.ca

3) Associate Professor, Concordia University, Building, Civil and Environmental Eng., Montréal, Québec, Canada galal@bcee.concordia.ca

Reinforced masonry (RM) shear walls are widely used in medium- to high-rise masonry buildings as part of the lateral force resisting system to provide the lateral strength, stiffness and energy dissipation capacity required to resist lateral loads arising from earthquakes or wind. In the past few decades, there has been considerable advancement in the design of RM shear walls for new construction with variable types of confinement of the compressed toe for increasing ductility level. A major advancement that is underway in the Canadian code for design of masonry structures is the introduction of what is called Special Ductile Reinforced Masonry (SDRM) Shear Walls with column-like boundary elements for the improvement of the ductility capacity of the walls. The goal of this paper is to quantify the compressive strain capacity of concrete masonry boundary elements towards developing an analytical model to be used for the design of RM shear walls.

Keywords: Reinforced Masonry walls; Boundary elements, Confinement; stress-strain