Author
HAACH, V. G.; VASCONCELOS, G.; LOURENÇO, P. B.
ISISE, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, Azurém, Guimarães, Portugal

Abstract
Dry vertical joints seem to be and interesting solution to be considered in a masonry building in order to ensure simplification of tasks and optimization of the execution process. Mortar is one of the components of the anisotropic masonry material and it is responsible for the stress uniform distribution, correction in irregularities of blocks and accommodation of deformations associated to thermal expansions and shrinkage. Thus, the usage of dry vertical joints may implicate some consequences that should be considered during the design. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the influence of the mortar filling of the vertical joints on the behaviour of shear walls through numerical modelling. The numerical study is performed through the software DIANA® based on the Finite Element Method. The validation of the numerical model is carried out from a data basis composed of the available experimental results on masonry walls tested under cyclic lateral loading. Numerical results revealed that the mortar filling of vertical joints can increase up to 20% the lateral strength of shear walls however, its influence depends on the failure mode of the masonry wall.

Key words
Shear, flexure, mortar, filling of joints, masonry walls