Experimental and Analytical Research into the In-Plane Behaviour of Calcium Silicate Piers, Retrofitted with Unbounded Steel Bars
摘要
In a building, some masonry piers may receive relatively low axial loads. These piers can be toppled over, and consequently, their contribution to the lateral stability of the building will be smaller. A previous paper dealt with the possibility of activating low-loaded, and therefore passive, one-storey high piers by using unbonded reinforcement. This paper describes the research into the behaviour of two-storey high walls, six metres high, performed to check the developed model. Rectangular walls with lengths of 600 mm and 1200 mm, and walls with a 1000 mm long T-section were tested in duplicate. All six tested piers were reinforced with unbonded threaded bars, anchored at each of the three floors. Load was applied at the centre of the first and second storey floor. Horizontal floor displacements, forces in the reinforcement and deformations in the floor wall contact areas were measured. The results allowed, together with the dimensions of the test set-up, for a relatively accurate establishment of the position and magnitude of the axial forces in the critical sections of the wall and in the reinforcement. Like in the one-storey walls, the critical section was at the bottom of the walls. One of the T-section wall systems failed suddenly in tension-shear. The shorter wall systems were aborted when the reinforcement started to behave non-linearly or when the masonry at the toe started to crush. The findings from the experiments and those from an earlier developed model were comparable, although minor fine-tuning of the model was required.