Damage thresholds in unreinforced masonry

Abstract

In various regions of Australia, mines and quarries employ blasting, which some home owners believe causes cracking of non-structural components such as brick veneer. The first part of this paper reports on properties affecting damage thresholds of masonry subjected to shear load at a localised unit/mortar scale using off-axis prism tests and triplet tests. The second part reports on the performance of a full-scale unreinforced masonry wall with a window penetration subjected to an increasing racking displacement. Drift and the associated strains required to initiate cracking are reported, and a correlation between drift and rate of crack propagation is proposed. © Institution of Engineers A..