ROLE OF TOOTHING ON IN-PLANE AND OUT-OF-PLANE

BEHAVIOR OF CONFINED MASONRY WALLS

Report submitted to
Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur
in partial fulfilment for award of one credit for
Research Methodology and Communication Skill

of

MASTERS OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING

by

SUSHANK DANI

Ist Semester

(Enrollment No. MT16STR020)

Under the Guidance of

Prof. S.B.Borghate

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MECHANICS

VISVESVARAYA NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,
NAGPUR - 440010
Introduction
The above titled (Singhal & Rai, 2014) paper consists of comparative study for RC infill walls,
confined masonry walls of both coarser and finer toothing and confined masonry wall without toothing.
Further author has illustrated the effect of toothing on strength, stiffness, cracking pattern, etc. How is
in-plane damage affect the out of plane strength of confined masonry wall and time of delay of collapse.
Confined masonry(CM) is a building technology that uses the same basic materials found in
unreinforced masonry construction and RC frame construction with masonry in fills, but with a different
construction sequence and system. In confined masonry construction, the masonry walls carry the
seismic loads and RC confined elements are used to confine the walls. This is in contrast to RC frame
buildings with infill walls where the concrete frames are needed to carry the load. RC frame buildings
are much more complex to design and build. Good bonding between a masonry wall and adjacent RC
tie-columns can be achieved by toothing of walls by projecting bricks at the wall-to-tie-column
interface. The toothing at wall and tie-column interface is also referred as shear-key and toothed shear-
key in few research articles.

Experimental Program
Specimen Details

A prototype wall was taken to be

a half brick thick wall with
dimensions 5m long by 3m high
which reduces to 2.5m x 1.5m for
half scaled specimens. Cross
section of RC tie beams and tie
column had 65mm x 65mm.
Construction sequence is
illustrated in Fig. 2. Specimen are
designated as below (Fig. 1): -
1. SI RC frame with infilled Fig. 1. Geometric details of test specimens
masonry wall (a) (a) SI (b) SCCT (c) SCFT (d) SCNT
2. SCCT CM wall with
coarser toothing 60mm long 94mm high with 2 brick thick (b)
3. SCFT CM wall with finer toothing 60mm long 47mm high with 1 brick thick (c)
4. SCNT wall constructed same as CM but without toothing (d)

Fig. 2. Various construction stages for confined masonry wall

Test setup

Braced steel frames which is stiffer than a typical flexible floor diaphragm are provided for
better stiffness of lateral supports in out of plane direction. A servo hydraulic driven uniaxial shake
table of 1.8m x 1.2m is used for out of plane loading. In plane loading was induced through 250kN
servo hydraulic actuator. Side supports as shown in Fig. 3 for stimulating boundary condition of
diaphragm and out of plane deformation. To ensure sufficient torsional restraint to RC beams and

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masonry walls during in plane and out of plane loading lateral supports on both sides of wall were
braced at top. In plane supports were attached to reaction floor to transfer overturning loads during in
plane loading. To measure out of plane displacement 20 accelerometers were used. For out of plane
displacement along height and length 10 string potentiometers of 250mm stroke were installed. Linear

Fig. 3. Test setup for (a) out-of-plane loading; (b) in-plane loading
variable differential transducers
(LVDTs) were placed to measure
in plane wall displacements (Fig.
4). In order to monitor all these
sensors, a high performance data
acquisition system which collects
data at rate of 200 samples per
seconds.

Loading History and test

procedure

The N21E Taft earthquake Fig. 5. Summary of test procedure and loading sequence
record were selected to have out of
plane target motion with PGA of 0.156g. For dynamic similitude time axis of acceleration spectrum
was scaled downed by factor of 1/ 2 and first 30 sec of strong ground motion was considered. PGA
values of scaled accelerogram and IS code for 5% damping. For in plane loading, loading time history
of gradually increasing story drifts are used (Fig. 5). Each displacement cycle was repeated for three
times at each drift ratio. In order to induce dynamic characteristics, forced vibration were performed.
The test was discontinued when one of the following two criteria was met: (1) large out-of-plane
displacement resulting in the likely collapse of the wall in the out-of-plane direction or (2) fracturing of
vertical reinforcing bars in tie-columns, or extensive cracking in masonry and concrete during the in-
plane drift cycle.

Conclusion: -
It was observed from Fig. 6
that cracking of masonry started with in
plane loading (0.5% drift) which was
significant and subsequent loading
procedure exaggerated it while not
many cracks were formed during out of
plane loading. In SCNT failure was due
to excessive cracking of masonry wall
panel and also due to crushing of Fig. 4. Instrumentation details for out-of-plane tests
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 Fig. 6. Comparison of cracking patterns for all specimens after 1.75% in-plane damage cycle:
concrete masonry at mid height. While in RC infill specimen, at 0.5% drift there was separation of
masonry and RC tie beams and columns. It also showed excessive out of plane deflection which was
on verge of collapse at 1.75% drift. Cracking pattern of SCFT showed uniform pattern as compared to
SCCT. In SCFT and SCCT showed less degradation in strength even at 1.75% drift and damage was
due to plastic hinge formation at bottom of RC tie columns. Therefore, they need to be designed
properly so as to carry large in plane tensile forces due to in plane overturning moments. Overall, SCFT
showed uniform cracking behaviour, lesser strength degradation, higher in plane resistance, not much
significant energy absorption and reduced rate of stiffness degradation at 1.75% drift. Finally, toothing
delayed the time required for collapse and significantly improved in plane and out of plane
characteristics of confined masonry panel as compared to RC infill panels.

Table 1. Summary of Various Performance Parameters Achieved during In-Plane Test

Drift level (%) SI SCCT SCFT SCNT

0.5 Separation of wall from all No separation at wall-to-tie-column interface; formation of diagonal
adjoining confining member; stepped cracks
reached maximum in-plane
capacity
0.75 Crushing of concrete at toe of exterior tie-
columns
1.00 Rocking of masonry panel and more severe crushing of Crushing of concrete in interior tie-
concrete at bottommost corner column
1.4 Widening of previously formed cracks and rebars exposed at toe of exterior tie-columns; wall SCFT
during second cycle experienced fracturing of one rebar in each tie-column; crushing of bricks around
interior tie-column also observed in wall SCNT
1.75 20 mm wide gap between Fracturing of vertical rebars Concrete at mid-height of interior tie-
masonry panel and top tie- at ends of damaged tie- column totally disintegrated along with
beam column bucking of rebars

SAP 2000 Analysis for out of plane strength

In order to determine the out of plane strength of confined masonry wall we need to do linear elastic
analysis considering simple supports along the tie beam and tie column and fixed support at each
column. All these assumptions are due to stimulation of experimental model. A simple analysis of frame
is shown below. A one bay one story frame of height 3m and length also 3m is considered for analysis.
Here b and c in Fig. 7(a) denotes beam and column. Some errors have occurred through which values
are not nearer to experimental values. I am working on it.

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 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 7. Modelling of frame in SAP 2000 (a)Element properties, (b) Out of plane loading, (c) Torsion due to
eccentricity of In-Plane loads, (d) In-Plane loading

Table 2. Comparison of values and errors computation

Research Paper SAP 2000 Absolute Difference

Max. Moment Max. Moment Max. Moment

Specimen Max. Max. (kN-m) Max. Max. (kN-m) Max. Max. (kN-m)
Shear Torsion Shear Torsion Shear Torsion
(kN) (kN-m) Out- (kN) (kN-m) Out- (kN) (kN-m) Out-
In- In- In-
of- of- of-
plane plane plane
plane plane plane
Left
26.44 2.08 14.51 25.5 2.46 12.75 0.94 0.38 1.76
vertical
Top 25.87 1.95 12.5 25.5 2.46 12.75 0.37 0.51 0.25
Right
24.56 2.01 12.5 5.94 25.5 2.46 12.75 5.01 0.94 0.45 0.25 0.93
Vertical

Future Approach: -
Modelling of same specimen in SAP 2000 then in ABACUS and check consistency.
Study different software modelling methods such as diagonal strut method.

References: -

Singhal, V., & Rai, D. C. (2014). Role of toothing on In-Plane and Out-of-Plane Behaviour
of Confined Masonry Walls. J. Struct. Eng.,10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943541X.0000947-
140(9), 04014053.