Experimental research of seismic behavior of reinforced shale cavity brick masonry walls

Steel reinforcement in the masonry wall can greatly improve the seismic behavior of the wall. In order to investigate the seismic behavior of this structure, the low cyclic reversed lateral loading tests on six pieces of shale cavity brick masonry walls which used three bricklaying patterns have been carried out. In this paper, the failure proceeding of the specimens have been represented, and the failure modes, bearing capacity, hysteretic characteristics, skeleton curves, ductility and energy dissipation were investigated. The result of investigation showed that the steel reinforcement not only can improve the bearing capacity of the masonry wall, but also can greatly enforce the seismic behavior and the deformation behavior of the wall.