SAENGER, DOROTHEA1; BRAMESHUBER, WOLFGANG 2

1) Dipl.-Ing., RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Building Materials Research, saenger@ibac.rwth-aachen.de

2) Professor Dr.-Ing., RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Building Materials Research, brameshuber@ibac.rwth-aachen.de

The development of a realistic analysis approach for clay masonry basement walls under earth pressure is underway. This design method should accurately describe the stress and deformation behavior especially of light vertically loaded walls being subjected to out-of-plane forces. For the development of this approach, the actual bond behavior between masonry wall and adjacent construction components (e. g. ceiling and basement slab) has to be taken into account. With this aim, extensive experimental and theoretical investigations are currently carried out.

For the determination of the bond properties between masonry wall and concrete basement slab in the bottom bed joint, several experimental investigations on small test specimens were performed, considering the influence of diverse damp-proof courses. For this purpose, a testing method was developed. Based on these investigations, the actual material laws in the bottom bed joint were determined with the help of FE-simulations.

In further numerical simulations of story-high walls, the calculated material laws will be applied at the bottom of the walls. These FE-models will be calibrated with respect to additional tests on story-high wall specimens. Depending on the various geometric, material and load-related parameters, the analysis approach for the design of masonry basement walls will be derived.

Keywords: out-of-plane loading, basement wall, bond behavior, masonry design