Damage thresholds in unreinforced masonry walls subjected to in-plane loading

TL;DRAbstract

Blasting is a common technique employed in Australian mines and quarries to aid in the process of rock extraction. Airblast and ground vibrations caused by blasting may travel to residential areas where the dominant residential construction type is brick veneer. Two important modes of excitation that occur in walls of houses from blast vibrations are flexural and in-plane racking. The latter is widely recognised as having a greater damage potential and forms the focus of this research project. This paper reports on part of an experimental program involving the testing of two 3m long by 2.4m high walls with penetrations of varying size, subjected to in-plane racking load. The test setup incorporates a shear load applied at the top of each wall with uplift restrained by a holddown mechanism. Deformation in the walls including cracking was measured at more than 400 locations across the face of each wall using digital photogrammetry. The resulting crack pattern is reported along with the d

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