1 Graduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, CANADA. Email: haymam2@mcmaster.ca
2 Technical Expert, AMEC NSS, Power and Process Americas. Email: waleed.mekky@amec.com
3 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Martini, Mascarin and George Chair in Masonry Design, McMaster University, Hamilton, CANADA.
Email: eldak@mcmaster.ca
4 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Joe NG/JNE Consulting Chair in Design, Construction and Management in Infrastructure Renewal, McMaster University, Hamilton, CANADA. Email: taitm@mcmaster.ca
ABSTRACT
In the past two years, blast resistant design has been introduced in the USA and Canada through ASCE 59-11 “Blast Protection of Buildings” and CSA S850-12 “Design and Assessment of Buildings Subject to Blast Loads”. The introduction of these new design standards has led to a situation where the behaviour of reinforced masonry shear wall systems, designed and detailed essentially for in-plane loading, would need to be quantified under such extreme out-of-plane loading. The current study focuses on experimentally assessing the performance of masonry shear wall building components under large-scale explosions using third-scale specimens. The effect of the explosion level on the stability of the wall, and the possibility of partial or complete progressive collapse, as a result of the explosion, was quantified in terms of the residual wall mid-height deflection. In general, the results show that reinforced masonry shear wall systems can withstand relatively high blast load levels with minor damage. However, with more damage, designers should consider the overall system-level performance (such as the role of the floor diaphragm, load re-distribution and other perpendicular walls) on stabilizing the damaged wall and preventing progressive collapse.
KEYWORDS: blast loads, concrete masonry, reinforced masonry blast response, third-scale testing
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