Jeeric Penales, Jamshid Zohrehheydariha, Samuel Ehikhuenmen, Sreekanta Das and Bennett Banting
Jeeric Penales, Past Master’s Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada, penales@uwindsor.ca
Jamshid Zohrehheydariha, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada, zohreh@uwindsor.ca
Samuel Ehikhuenmen, Doctoral Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada, ehikhue@uwindsor.ca
Sreekanta Das Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada, nsdas@uwindsor.ca
Bennett Banting Director of Technical Services, Canada Masonry Design Centre, 360 Superior Blvd., Mississauga, ON, Canada
ABSTRACT
Masonry design standards require stirrups to be in contact with horizontal reinforcement. The placement of shear stirrups in beams built with narrow masonry concrete blocks becomes challenging due to cell changes as the block size reduces. Similarly, the smallest standard shear reinforcing bar size (i.e. 10M rebar) with a standard hook is complicated for an artisan to achieve in the field. Hence, this study was carried out to investigate the feasibility of using 8 mm steel bars and readily available bed joint wire (i.e. steel wire mesh) mesh which is commonly used as a
horizontal reinforcement, as potential shear (vertical) reinforcement alternatives to enhance the flexural capacity and reduce the shear crack of masonry concrete beams. In this current study, four reinforced masonry concrete beams and ten grouted masonry prisms were made and tested. Several experimental data from the linear variable displacement transducers, load cells, and digital image correlation techniques were obtained and analyzed. The results reveal that the use of wire mesh as shear (vertical) reinforcement resulted in higher improvement in the flexural capacity of the beam compared to when the 8 mm bars and standard rebars were used. Also, masonry beams having alternative stirrups displayed higher ductility as against beam made with standard reinforcement. Furthermore, the beam made with bed-joint wires reduced the shear cracks width similar to the beam made with conventional reinforcements. The findings from this study also showed that the Canadian masonry design standard value for chi (χ) factor is potentially conservative.
