Title: Masonry framing and capacity characterisation

Authors: G.L. Stockdale

Addresses: Masonry Methods Inc., Nevada City, CA 95959, USA

Abstract: Masonry framing has a great potential to become a modern construction technique for residential, commercial and infrastructure applications. The focus of this design project was to create a full-scale mechanically controllable masonry arch frame and develop a non-destructive capacity quantification strategy. The blocks were designed and constructed from readily available materials found at most hardware stores. They were also designed to be lightweight and easily manageable. A tilting platform was also created to provide a simple and efficient failure method for establishing a non-destructive capacity quantification approach. The repeated tilting of the constructed arch demonstrated that the design arch frame can be mechanically controlled. Varying the defined mechanism under repeated failure testing also generated a quantification approach that can synchronise theoretical and measured capacities beyond the tested mechanisms under the given loading condition. This project therefore provides the first physical link towards the modernisation of structural masonry framing.

Keywords: masonry arch; masonry framing; kinematic equilibrium; RSBD; masonry as a method; masonry design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMRI.2022.122518

International Journal of Masonry Research and Innovation, 2022 Vol.7 No.3, pp.326 - 342

Received: 22 Mar 2021
Accepted: 22 Apr 2021
Published online: 29 Apr 2022 *

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