HEEREMA, PAUL1; SHEDID, MARWAN 2; EL-DAKHAKHNI, WAEL 3

1) Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, L8S 4L7, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: heeremp@mcmaster.ca

2) Assistant Professor, Structural Engineering Department, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. E-mail: marwan.shedid@eng.asu.edu.eg

3) Martini, Mascarin and George Chair in Masonry Design, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, eldak@mcmaster.ca

This paper presents some aspects of the experimental behavior of a two-storey 1/3rd scale fully-grouted reinforced concrete block wall structure tested under quasi-static loading. The building consists of eight walls having different cross sectional shapes, dimensions and reinforcement arrangements. The walls along the main loading direction were placed in such a way to generate a center of rigidity eccentricity (from the center of mass) of about 20% of the building width with the orthogonal walls used to ensure a torsionally-restrained structure. The building roof slab rotation, and individual wall displacements were investigated. The contributions of the walls to the overall building resistance within both the elastic and the inelastic response stages were identified. In addition, individual wall resistances and displacements due to the building translations and rotations as well as the building ductility corresponding to 20% strength degradation were quantified. This research project forms a part of a larger research program aiming at understanding the behavior of reinforced masonry systems, rather than individual wall components, in order to facilitate a smooth transition from force-based design to performance-based design within the next generation of North American seismic codes currently being developed.

Keywords: Concrete Masonry, Displacement ductility, Structural walls, System testing.