H-shaped calcium silicate masonry specimens loaded in shear

Masonry walls enclose rooms in buildings and may have a load bearing function. Load bearing walls not only transfer vertical loads but also horizontal (wind or seismic) loads. Masonry walls are usually bonded at their vertical intersection forming T or H shaped sections. In this vertical intersection, shear is an important design parameter. A standardized test for this type of shear is not available. Usually, the triplet shear test is applied. However, the triplet test is only intended to establish the initial shear strength of bed joints. Other tests in which shear and pre compression are applied in bed joints are the diagonal tension test and the compression wallette tests with inclined bed joints. In this paper research into the behavior of H shaped specimens loaded in shear is discussed. The specimens, 500mm high and 550mm long, were made from calcium silicate units with thin bed joints. Their dimension was roughly at a 1:5 scale, i.e. wall thickness was 50mm compared to wall thickness in buildings up to 300mm. Two different support conditions were applied. Results are compared with diagonal tension tests on masonry simultaneously made from the same materials, results from literature, push over tests on real sized walls and results from numerical simulations. The more confined specimens resulted in higher ultimate loads. The deformation measurements indicated the effects of local cracking.