Lightweight masonry basement walls under out-of-plane loading

Extensive investigations were conducted in (Brameshuber et al., Standsicherheit horizontal belasteter Mauerwerkwände unter geringer Auflast, 2014) to analyse the load bearing and deformation behaviour especially of lightly loaded basement walls made of hollow clay units under out-of-plane shear load. Particular attention was paid to the bond between basement wall and the adjacent building members considering also the damp-proof courses. Therefore, an essential part of this work was the determination of the material laws of the bond at the bottom of the wall comprising the shear bond strength, the friction coefficient as well as the softening behaviour. For this purpose a test method was developed. The material laws were determined applying a two-dimensional numerical simulation of the shear tests by means of a best possible adjustment of the calculated curves to the test curves. Applying the material laws of the material components and the bond, two-dimensional numerical simulations of masonry walls under axial compression and out-of-plane shear load were performed. Simultaneously, experimental investigations with simplified horizontal load transfer were also conducted on floor-to-ceiling walls which served to calibrate the finite element (FE) model. Finally, a parameter study was performed with the calibrated FE model of the wall, selectively varying the distribution of the earth pressure as well as the value and eccentricity of the vertical load. From this study it becomes apparent that the earth pressure distribution exerts a decisive influence on the deformation and load bearing capacity of the basement wall.