The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Cyclic loading tests of masonry single piers, Volume 1 - height to width ratio of 2

Hidalgo, Pedro A.; Mayes, Ronald L.; McNiven, Hugh D.; Clough, Ray W.

UCB/EERC-78/27, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1978-11, 140 pages (515/H482/1978/v.1)

This report presents the results of fourteen cyclic, inplane shear tests on fixed-ended masonry piers having a height to width ratio of 2. These fourteen tests form part of a test program consisting of eighty single pier tests. Subsequent reports will present test results of the additional sixty-six tests. Each subsequent report will be based on the height to width ratio of the piers. The test setup was designed to simulate insofar as possible the boundary conditions the piers would experience in a perforated shear wall of a complete building. Each test specimen was a full-scale pier 80 inches high and 40 inches wide. Two types of masonry construction were used: a hollow clay brick type that used an 8 inch wide unit, and a double wythe grouted core clay brick, 10-inch thick wall, that consisted of two wythes 3 1/2-inches thick and 3-inch grouted core. The variables included in the investigation were the quantity of reinforcement and the type of grouting. The results are presented in the form of hysteresis envelopes; graphs of stiffness degradation, energy dissipation and shear distortion; and tabulated data on the ultimate strength and hysteresis indicators. A discussion of these test results is presented but no definitive conclusions are offered. These will be included in a final report at the completion of the eighty tests.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-78-27.pdf (25 MB)