Padalu Pravin Kumar Venkat Rao¹, Yogendra Singh¹, and Sreekanta Das²
1) Dept. of Earthquake Engineering, IIT Roorkee
Roorkee-247667, India
e-mail: {ppkvr49, yogendra.eq}@gmail.com
2) Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor
401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, Ontario N9B3P4, Canada
e-mail: sdas@uwindsor.ca

Keywords: Brick, Mortar, Masonry Prism, Compressive Strength, Modulus of Elasticity, Stress-Strain Curve, Variability.

Abstract. Estimation of material properties is the most crucial step in estimating performance of any structure. Masonry being a complex composite material has large variability in mechanical properties. The variability in Indian conditions, where most of the operations are performed manually, is even higher. In the present study, experimental investigations are performed on solid burnt clay brick masonry with cement-sand mortar. The results of the experimental study are compared with the past studies and empirical models available in literature. It is observed that the mechanical properties of masonry have a large portion of aleatory variability, due to variations in constituent materials and workmanship. The strength and associated variability for the Indian masonry can be estimated using the set of empirical relations available for different parts of the world, with reasonable accuracy; however, the same is not true for the modulus of elasticity.