1 Junior engineer, Julie.Therrien-Truchon@usherbrooke.ca
2 Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada, Patrick.Paultre@usherbrooke.ca
3 Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada, Jean.Proulx@usherbrooke.ca.
ABSTRACT
A significant portion of unreinforced masonry (URM) school buildings in Central Quebec were built in the 1950s and 60s. Construction types include steel, concrete and wood frames with URM used as infill on the perimeter as well as non-‐structural partition walls. A recent inventory survey carried out on buildings for which the outer brick walls were being repaired or replaced showed that the peripheral infill material was often unreinforced hollow structural clay tiles (terracotta). This material, now difficult to find in Canada, was widely used at the time as infill to steel or concrete frames. As school buildings are designated as priority buildings, the evaluation of their earthquake resistance requires a reliable knowledge of their dynamic behavior. This paper presents a research project that was developed to characterize structural clay tiles and typical walls built with this material when subjected to seismic forces. Cyclic tests were carried out on a typical first-‐floor outer wall specimen that could have been located in a typical 1950s school building, based on findings from a survey of more than 55 school buildings. The structural clay tile wall specimen measured approximately 3×3 m enclosed by a steel frame. Characterization tests were also carried out on single tiles as well as small tiles assemblies to obtain information on compression strength, elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio. Results are presented and discussed for key parameters (stiffness, load-‐bearing capacity, deformation and energy dissipation). Experimental results were compared with numerical predictions obtained with the SeismoStruct nonlinear program, using the masonry element based on the equivalent strut concept.
KEYWORDS: seismic behaviour, unreinforced masonry, in-plane cyclic test, infill wall, structural clay tile, school buildings
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