Experimental study of brick masonry walls sobjected to eccentric and axial load

Abstract

Masonry buildings represent a huge building stock. The need for preservation of masonry structures may be due to various reasons: economic, heritage, etc. These buildings are often subjected to diagnosis processes that involve structural assessment which can be complex when the slenderness of the walls and the eccentric loading are taken into account. Load-bearing masonry walls have a complex structural response characterized by the secondorder bending effects often caused by the eccentricity of the load. This characteristic is taken into consideration in the Spanish and European regulations which contemplate decreases in the bearing capacity of the walls according to their slenderness. This contrasts with the actual behaviour of the walls, since the collapse rarely occurs due to buckling. This paper presents the results of an experimental campaign that has been carried out in order to study the effects of slenderness and axial and eccentric load in structural masonry walls. For this purpose, masonry walls with different mortar dosages and identical type of moulded bricks have been tested under different load conditions. The results of the tests are compared to those given by the current regulations, European and Spanish, EUROCODE-6 and CTE.