Technical Papers
Jul 29, 2024

Experimental Investigation of Confined Masonry Walls with Openings

Publication: Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 150, Issue 10

Abstract

Eight half-scale confined masonry (CM) walls with and without confinement around the openings were tested under cyclic in-plane loads. Initially, four CM walls, one solid and three having different openings without confinement, were tested. Thereafter, wall specimens with confining elements around the openings were tested under similar loading cycles. The experimental study indicated that the presence of tie elements around the openings significantly enhanced the performance parameters of the CM walls in terms of their in-plane capacity, energy dissipation, stiffness, strength degradation, distortion of openings, and displacement profiles. The accuracy of the available equations in predicting the strength reduction due to openings was also evaluated. It was observed that no equation considers the confining effect of tie elements around the openings. Thus, based on the available experimental data set, a novel method is recommended for estimating the contribution of confining elements around the openings in CM walls.

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Data Availability Statement

Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the grant received from the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (Grant No. ECR/2018/000489). In addition, the authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance received from the staff of the Structural Engineering Laboratory at IIT Patna, Bihar.
Author contributions: Akshay Gupta: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Writing—original draft preparation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Visualization. Vaibhav Singhal: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing—review and editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

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Go to Journal of Structural Engineering
Journal of Structural Engineering
Volume 150Issue 10October 2024

History

Received: Oct 4, 2023
Accepted: Apr 29, 2024
Published online: Jul 29, 2024
Published in print: Oct 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Dec 29, 2024

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Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Bihta, Bihar 801103, India. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6185-2544. Email: [email protected]
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, Bihta, Bihar 801103, India (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6116-1586. Email: [email protected]

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