Influence of tensile strength on the load bearing capacity of tall reinforced masonry walls

Rupture by geometric instability is a common characteristic in slender walls. Codes for the design of slender walls use the slenderness ratio (λ) as a parameter for which their methods are valid. The Brazilian standard has a specific method for the design of highly slender walls with λ > 30 that does not take into account the tensile strength of the masonry. To evaluate the behavior of high slenderness walls and the sensitivity to tensile strength, a finite element model was developed using Abaqus to simulate three experiments from the literature. The results proved the ability of the modeling to represent the behavior of slender walls with 20% error for the out-of-plane displacements and vertical load bearing capacity. It was concluded that the post buckling behavior of the walls is sensitive to tensile strength and negligible for determining the critical buckling load.

Keywords:
Loading-bearing masonry; buckling; finite element modeling