Author
KLAVS FEILBERG HANSEN Danish Building Research Institute

Abstract
The results of 16 deformation controlled tests with bending of masonry walls about axes perpendicular to the bed joints are presented. The objective of the tests was to investigate the failure mechanism and post-peak beha viour as a function of the brick and mortar properties as well as the bond type in order to identify the most favourable combination of These variables with respect to strength and deformation capacity of a laterally loaded masonry wall, The observed failure mechanism varied from a brittle, simple bending failure involving failure of both bricks and perpend joints to more ductile failures involving limited brick failures but shear torsion failures in the bed joints. The failures observed in the bricks were either a simple, bending failure near the centre of the brick or a corner slice off in the compression zone of the brick. In the cases of a simple bending failure the load dropped to zero immediately after peak load was reached. In the cases of combined brick and bed joint failure the initiation of failure was accompanied by a small interval of almost constant load before the load dropped to a residual load of 20-40% of the peak load, and then declined slightly with increasing deformation.