Structural properties of unreinforced masonry walls considering construction qualities

Non-structural unreinforced masonry (URM) walls are generally consisted of cement bricks and mortar used for joint material. Bricks in masonry works should be completely glued on bed and head-joints with sufficient thickness. In typical masonry construction, variation of thickness and recess of bed and head-joints is inevitable and they are important physical parameters that can be used in determining the construction quality of masonry works. Thus, it is necessarily required to investigate the influence of construction quality on the structural properties of an URM wall. As preliminary investigations, this study experimentally evaluates the effects of construction quality to the diagonal tension behavior of a masonry unit. The effects are discussed with selected test parameters, thicknesses and recesses of joints which can be considered to be critical quantities to erection time related to the construction quality of the test specimens. Test results present that the failure modes of the specimens are considerably dependent upon the construction qualities and their strength and elastic modulus increase in the specimen with better construction quality presenting the smaller recess and the larger thickness of the bed and head-joints.