Failure of the cores of partially reinforced masonry under lateral cyclic loading

Partially reinforced masonry (PRM), consists of grout filled reinforced cores, bond and lintel beams, and unreinforced masonry panels. Even though the reinforced cores are designed to carry out-of-plane flexure caused by the horizontal loads, the behaviour of PRM to loading is neither well defined nor well understood, particularly the response of the lightly reinforced cores. Therefore the response of the reinforced cores of PRM to constant axial and cyclic lateral loading was studied. The mode of failure, the hysteretic moment-curvature curves and the bond characteristics of the reinforcing bars are presented in this paper.