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Bonded  brickwork  loadbearing walls are commonly seen in many colonial period 

structures  around  the  world;  however,  most  research  studies  in  the  past  and  the  current 

design provisions are primarily based on single leaf brickwork. Due to the anisotropic natu re 

of  brickwork,  the  strength  and  deformation  characteristics  would  be  different  for  bonded 

brickwork walls and their design using  the provisions of single leaf bonded brickworks may 

be un-conservative. Therefore, to understand the compressive behaviour of differently bonded 

brickworks, an experimental programme followed by a numerical investigation were carried 

out in this research. The experimental programme comprised of  testing nine wallettes under 

uniaxial compression. Three different types of bonded thicknesses (single, double and triple) 

were used to construct the wallettes. The experimental results are presented and discussed in 

terms of failure modes, compressive strengths and stress-strain responses obtained. Further a 

numerical  investigation  based  on the micro modelling approach was employed to verify the 

experimental  findings.  The  experimental  and  numerical  modelling  results  indicate  that  the 

change in brickwork thicknesses does not significantly increase the compressive strength of 

the masonry. The increased number of weak perpend joints in the bonded brickwork wallettes, 

could  be  a reason of lower strength and thus, a general notion of increment in compressive 

resistance  due  to  the  reduction  in  slenderness  i s  not  applicable  for  bonded  brickwork. 

Parametric  analyses  were  also  carried  out  and  reported  for  different  slenderness ratios to 

extend the understanding on the behaviour of bonded brickworks under compression.

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== Full document ==

<pdf>Media:Draft_Content_423543543p1217.pdf</pdf>

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