Journals Proceedings

Abstract

Brick masonry is one of the earliest types of structures erected by man. Masonry has been used as a load bearing material for centuries. It is the most common type of structures in many countries. It is very weak in resisting earthquake hence the parameters of masonry unit to resist lateral load needs to be known. To find shear and tensile properties of brick masonry unit no standard procedures are introduced in ASTM and ACI. The shear and tensile properties between brick and mortar interface are closely presented in this paper. The objective of this paper is not to develop standard procedure of finding shear and tensile properties of masonry unit rather to develop a preliminary method to find the shear and tensile properties of masonry unit. Various works have been done about compressive strength of mortar. But few works are done about tensile and shear strength of mortar. The shear and tensile strength of mortar between three brick masonry unit are closely studied at various loading conditions were parameters of mortars are varied. A total of 60 specimens were prepared. By applying compressive force on masonry the failure shear force and corresponding deflection have been measured. By varying the parameters of masonry the tensile strength of mortar is also measured. This study is an initial step to prepare numerical model by finite element of shear and tensile strength of mortar.