Fatigue behaviour of interlocking grouted stabilised mud-fly ash brick masonry

A series of laboratory tests have been conducted to investigate the fatigue behaviour of interlocking grouted stabilized mud-fly ash brick masonry. Three cases of loading at 0°, 45° and 90° to the bed joints are considered. The brick units and masonry system developed by Sinha is used in present investigation. Eighteen specimens of size 500 mm × 700 mm × 100 mm and nine specimens of size 500 mm × 500 mm × 100 mm are tested. For each of three levels of minimum stress, the number of cycles to failure is determined for each of various maximum stress levels considered. The fatigue study presented here is limited to approximately 8000 load cycles. For the range of tests considered, it is found that the effect of repeated compressive loading can cause reduction in the compressive strength of brick masonry as high as 25%.