Page 37 - CBT 2018
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Stability of Masonry Bearing Walls
The unreinforced masonry bearing wall has been an essential building element for several millennia. Yet when subjected to out-of-plane lateral loads, it has defied practical treatment. At a fundamental level, tensile stresses from bending due to lateral loading and eccentric vertical compression crack the masonry and reduce the effective section that resists loading. The solution for the vertical load Pe at buckling depends on a coefficient
λ , which captures the distribution of moments, and on ef , which is defined as the ratio of maximum first-order moment to Pe. Experimental testing and numerical simulations by CEGE researchers have revealed that this solution describes
a highly nonlinear moment-axial
load interaction for the limit of stable behavior, with the existence of tension and compression branches and a strong dependence on vertical load eccentricity. [59–62]
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