Experimental investigation on out-of-plane bending of double brick walls

The presence of ceiling-to-ceiling window/door openings in modern residential buildings in Western Australia (WA) often challenges structural engineers to design adjoining slender double brick (DB) walls within the provisions of the Australian masonry standard AS 3700-2018. These DB walls are generally supported along the top and bottom horizontal edges only and hence, their design is governed by the one-way vertical bending mechanism, which tends to provide the least resistance to out-of-plane loading. To understand the performance of these walls to lateral loading, a series of destructive tests are conducted to estimate the out-of-plane one-way vertical bending capacity of DB walls. Two DB walls of dimensions 920mm length × 2652 mm height were constructed in the laboratory, which were monotonically loaded in the out-of-plane direction using controlled airbag pressure. The external leaf and the internal leaf of the DB walls were constructed using vertically and horizontally cored blocks, while both masonry leaves of the DB walls were connected using masonry ties. The compressive and flexural strength tests of blocks, mortar, ties, and masonry were performed. From the test, it was identified that both DB walls resisted similar out-of-plane load, although their load-displacement behaviour was distinct.