Behavior of Historical Unreinforced Brick Masonry Walls under Monotonic and Cyclic Compression

This paper presents the results of an experimental study performed on the original historical unreinforced brick masonry wallets, which were extracted from the load-bearing walls of the historical Akaretler Row Houses. The Akaretler Row Houses were built around 1875 in Istanbul. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the responses of the historical unreinforced masonry to monotonic and cyclic compression in a comparative manner. In order to realize this objective, a total of 15 original masonry wallet specimens in running bond, which consisted of three brick rows, two bed mortar joints and several head/longitudinal mortar joints, were tested. The responses of the wallets are presented with the relationships of compressive stress and compressive strain with emphasis on strength and deformability characteristics. The behavior of the wallets under cyclic loading is described with the envelope curves of the stress–strain relationships together with the stiffness degradation characteristics and plastic strains. Additionally, the experimental data such as the average compressive strengths of the wallets and the relationships of the compressive stress–strain are compared with the predictions of the available approaches. Furthermore, for practical purposes, several relationships are proposed between the compressive strengths of masonry wallets and reproduced prisms, and masonry wallets and masonry cores.