Global COE Program

International Urban Earthquake Engineering Center

for Mitigating Seismic Mega Risk

JOINT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

7th International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering (7CUEE)
5th International Conference on Earthquake Engineering (5ICEE)
Executive and Editorial Committee
Kazuhiko Kasai (Chair)
Hiroyasu Sakata
Akihiro Takahashi
Kohji Tokimatsu
Satoshi Yamada
Troy Morgan

Global COE program entitled “International Urban Earthquake Engineering Center

for Mitigating Seismic Mega Risk”

Center for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE), Tokyo Institute of Technology

CUEE O-okayama Office TEL/FAX: +81-(0) 3-5734-3200
CUEE Suzukakedai Office TEL/FAX: +81-(0) 45-924-5576/5199
URL: http://www.cuee.titech.ac.jp
JOINT CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
7th International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering (7CUEE) &
5th International Conference on Earthquake Engineering (5ICEE)
March 3-5, 2010, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan

IMPROVING SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF

BRICK MASONRY JUNCTIONS

Sekhar Chandra Dutta1), Parthasarathi Mukhopadhyay2), and Kundan Goswami3)

1) Professor and Head, School of Infrastructure, Indian Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, India
2) Asst. Professor, Dept. of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur, India
3) Graduate Student, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India
scdind2000@gmail.com, parthasm@gmail.com, kundanciv@gmail.com

Abstract: Unreinforced one or two storied load bearing brick masonry structures, built with combination of non-
engineered bricks and mortars, are natural economic choice for the millions of inhabitants of the third world. Owing
to their high compressive strength, such brick structures perform well under gravity loading. However, their
resistivity to horizontal ground motion is very less due to inherent low tensile strength. The lateral load bearing
capacity of such structures may be improved by ensuring proper connections at the junctions between two mutually
perpendicular walls, which extends the collapse time of the out-of-plane walls. This paper in its limited scope has
tried to quantify the improvement in performance of brick masonry junctions subjected to reversible lateral loading
through inclusion of two types of strengthening measures viz. reinforcing with L-shaped steel bars and encasing with
polypropylene bands, which leads to nominal increase in construction cost. Results show that inclusion of such
reinforcements lead to increased lateral strength of masonry junctions which is even more than twice of the same
exhibited by their unreinforced counterpart. Such observations may be helpful in evolving empirical design
guidelines, which may be implemented at artisanal levels in the seismically active regions of the world.

1. INTRODUCTION improving their seismic performance. This is because

Millions of inhabitants of the third world countries
have no other economic choice but to take shelter in
single or double storied unreinforced brick masonry
(URBM) structures. These masonry buildings are
constructed through combination of non-engineered
bricks and mortar. Bricks, being good in compression,
are generally suitable for undertaking the dead and
imposed loads acting vertically on the structures.
However, such unreinforced structures are usually
inadequate in resisting horizontal load. This is
primarily because of their low tensile strength. Such
structures are, therefore, susceptible to lateral thrusts
generated due to the earthquake ground motions.
1.1 Connecting Corners of Masonry Walls:
Qualitative Provisions
It has been observed that the isolated walls
perpendicular to the direction of the earthquake
shaking collapse earlier, in the form of out-of-plane
failure, than those parallel to the vibrations, which
suffer in-plane failure. It is this observation that
prompted the different earthquake codes to recommend
formation of proper connections at the junctions
between two mutually perpendicular masonry walls for
of the fact that when a set of mutually perpendicular
walls, properly connected with each other at their
junctions, suffer from earthquake ground motion, then
those suffering earthquake shaking in perpendicular
direction may not collapse, until those suffering
earthquake vibration in parallel direction fail. Among
different methods that the codes have recommended
for connecting two mutually perpendicular walls,
toothed joints in walls at corners and T-junctions and
connection through dowels, both in alternate layers of
masonry, are two important recommendations (IS:
4326-1993 and IAEE & NICEE: 2004).
1.2 Seismic Performance of URBM: Earlier
Investigations
The urge for improving the seismic performance of
the widely used URBM has prompted researchers in
the past to conduct extensive investigation in order to
enhance the lateral strength of the masonry structures
through reinforcements. The concept of seismic retrofit
of older masonry structures possessing substandard
seismic resistance through the use of jackets or skins of
composite fibres bonded with a polymer matrix to the
surface has been studied by Priestley and Seible (1995)
and implemented in simple design models for

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enhanced shear strength and flexural ductility. The
contribution of composites to the shear capacity of
strengthened elements has also been studied through
classical truss analogy by Triantafillou (1998). Very
few investigations have also been directed to test the
effectiveness of using polymeric grid reinforcement on
horizontal joints (Ramos et al. 2005). It has been
reported in a previous study by Kuzik et al. (2003) that
the hysteresis behaviour, wall stiffness and ultimate
strength are significantly affected by the amount of
glass fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) sheets rather than
the level of compressive axial load or the amount of
steel reinforcement. The experimental results exhibited
that punching shear through bricks, crushing of bricks,
debonding and tensile rupture of the FRP are the
modes of failure in strengthened walls that vary with
the type of reinforcement and anchorage system.
Experiments have also been conducted by Wang et al.
(2006) to determine the interaction coefficient of the
pilaster, modified coefficient, statistic coefficient and
effective participation coefficient when brick masonry
walls with pilasters were reinforced by glass FRP.
Analyses of failure model of brick masonry walls and
truss model of FRP have put forth the formulae of
seismic shear capacity of reinforced brick masonry
walls in concurrence with experimental results
obtained from tests conducted.
Several experiments have been conducted to
evaluate the out-of-plane flexural behaviour of
masonry walls reinforced with glass FRP as many of
the masonry structures fail in out-of-plane bending due
to the lack of reinforcement (Ehsani et al. 1999,
Gilstrap and Dolan 1998). In a similar study conducted
by Tan and Patoary (2003), experimental values of
ultimate load-carrying capacity of the strengthened
walls have been found to match well with the results
predicted through simple analytical models, which
were developed using the principles of strain
compatibility and force equilibrium. In-plane tests
conducted by Elgawady et al. (2003) indicate increased
lateral resistance and enhancement in ultimate drift in
the upgraded specimens when they are investigated
with respect to aspect ratio, fibre type, upgrading
configurations, fibre structures and mortar compressive
strength. Another similar study undertaken by Turek et
al. (2007) revealed that the use of vertical glass FRP
strips alone is able to improve the in-plane
performance of URBM walls. In a previous literature
(Taghdi et al. 2000), walls retrofitted with diagonal
and vertical steel strip system have shown significant
increase in in-plane strength and ductility behaviour. In
addition, a comparative view on hysteretic behaviour
of unreinforced and reinforced masonry walls has been
provided in the same literature. Another recent article
by Alcocer et al. (2004) also came up with the same
findings. Various shaking table tests have been
conducted by Meguro et al. (2005) to understand the
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dynamic response of masonry buildings and overall
effectiveness of strengthening technique.
1.3 Need for Quantitative Guidelines
In spite of the existing provisions recommended by
different national and international earthquake codes
regarding strengthening of masonry walls at corner
junctions, none of the investigations referred in the
previous sub-section was focussed on this area. The
authors, therefore, felt the necessity to conduct
experiments on this area in order to identify the broad
quantitative improvement due to reinforcing corners of
URBM in response to reversible lateral loading. This
paper, in its limited scope, has consequently attempted
to investigate this issue. Further, along with the same,
another popular issue of using polypropylene (PP)
bands are also investigated to arrive at the
understanding about quantitative levels of
improvement in seismic behaviour.
2. TEST SETUP
Three L-shaped masonry corner junctions, one
unreinforced and the other two strengthened as stated
above, having equal legs of length 750mm, height
750mm and thickness 125mm were constructed with
Class 12.5 bricks and M1 grade mortar conforming to
IS: 1077-1991 and IS: 1905-1987 respectively. Thus
the aspect ratio of the wall panels of the samples was
unity by design. ‘Running Bond’, as illustrated in
Figure 1, was used for construction of these L-shaped
masonry structures in order to avoid the possibility of
any portion acting as slender vertical member. In
absence of proper bonds, the flexural strength and axial
load carrying capacity of the masonry walls get
reduced as the imposed load does not get distributed
over a wide region and its intensity on a slender
portion rises up.
Figure 1 Masonry samples prepared in Running Bond
2.1 Unidirectional Horizontal Shaking Table
The masonry test pieces, thus set up, were mounted
on an unidirectional horizontal shake table and were
further cemented at the base to simulate real-life
situation. The shaking table used for simulating the
earthquake thrusts have a payload capacity of 3tonnes
and was subjected to sinusoidal base acceleration of
frequency 10Hz, for durations of 30s with varying
amplitude. The frequency level for testing the masonry
junctions has been chosen as 10Hz because the natural
frequencies of single storied structures lie in this range.
The photograph at Figure 2 shows the URBM sample
being mounted on the horizontal shaking table with a
glimpse of the servo-control mechanism at the
background.
Figure 2 An URBM Test Piece mounted on the
Unidirectional Horizontal Shaking Table
2.2 Reinforced Brick Masonry Samples
Unlike the unreinforced one, strengthening measures
for the other two masonry samples were undertaken as
follows:
(a) L-shaped steel bars of diameter 8mm were
provided in alternate layers at the corners of the
masonry (length of each leg being 250mm), as
depicted in Figure 3(a); and, (b) the walls were
encased with horizontal and vertical bands of
polypropylene, generally used for packaging, as shown
(a) Junction reinforced (b) Encasing junction by
with L-shaped steel bars horizontal and vertical PP
bands
Figure 3 Reinforced Brick Masonry Corner Junctions
during the Construction Stage
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in Figure 3(b). The average width and thickness of the
PP bands were measured to be 11mm and 0.4mm
respectively, and the tensile yield strength of the same
was reported to be 33MPa by the manufacturer.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3.1 Typical Modes of Failure
Masonry walls while behaving as in-plane may
undergo four types of failure namely, (a) shear sliding
or bed-joint sliding, (b) diagonal shear cracking, (c)
rocking failure, and, (d) toe crushing, which are
graphically represented in Figure 4. Shear sliding, as
depicted in Figure 4(a), occurs when the bond between
bed-joint mortar layers and bricks is weak and the
frictional force developed due to vertical load along
the cracks is less compared to the imposed lateral load.
Diagonal shear cracking, as shown in Figure 4(b),
mostly occurs when the in-plane behaving wall is
square in nature. In such a case, compression is
developed along one of the diagonals of the wall and
tension along the other. Since masonry is weak in
tension, it cannot withstand the tensile force and
consequently cracks. Rocking failure, as illustrated in
Figure 4(c), develops when the masonry wall is
comparatively slender and is subjected to reversible
lateral loading along with negligible vertical load. Toe
crushing, as represented in Figure 4(d), takes place
when the compressive stress developed at the toe
during rocking exceeds the compressive strength of
masonry elements, i.e. bricks, mortar etc.
(a) Shear sliding or bed- (b) Diagonal shear
joint sliding cracking
(c) Rocking failure (d)Toe Crushing
Figure 4 Different Modes of In-plane Failure of
URBM
3.2 Observations during shaking at different
acceleration levels
The three masonry samples were subjected to
shaking over a range of acceleration levels, starting
from 0.20g, increased at a rate of 0.05g, until all the
three samples failed. The crack patterns and failure
modes at various acceleration levels were noted.
However, observations corresponding to 0.25g, 0.60g
and 0.80g acceleration levels are reported here,
because of significant developments.
(a) Acceleration level 0.25g
The first test piece to undergo failure was the
URBM sample. The two strengthened samples did not
show any trace of failure at this stage. This incident
confirms the assumption that reinforcing URBM wall
junctions, either by L-shaped horizontal steel bars at
corners, or encasing them by PP bands, improves their
seismic performance. The photographs of Figure 5
represent a general view of the three samples after each
were subjected to vibration on the shaking table at an
acceleration level of 0.25g.
(a) URBM (b) Junction (c) Junction
sample reinforced with encased with PP
dowel bars bands
Figure 5 Performance of the three Brick Masonry
Corner Junctions after Application of Sinusoidal Base
Acceleration up to 0.25g
Figure 6 Collapse of both In-plane and Out-of-plane
Walls of the URBM Sample at 0.25g  the other masonry junction encased with FRP bands.
It can be observed from Figure 6 that both the walls
forming the URBM corner junction failed. While
development of diagonal shear cracks is observed in
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the wall parallel to the direction of the shaking (in-
plane behaving wall), the other wall perpendicular to
the direction of shaking simply overturned (out-of-
plane behaving wall). Shear sliding in the mortar bed-
joint at the second layer from the base is further
observed in the in-plane behaving wall.
Overturning of the out-of-plane behaving portion of
the junction at such a low acceleration level suggests
relatively weaker connection with its in-plane
behaving counterpart. The reason behind development
of diagonal shear crack in the in-plane behaving
portion of the junction may be attributed to the aspect
ratio of the wall panels, whose height is equal to its
length. However, development of base sliding might be
due to low bond strength compared to the demand
imposed by lateral load at that level.
 
(b) Acceleration level 0.60g
The second test piece to undergo failure was the
junction reinforced with L-shaped steel bars, which
failed when the acceleration level was gradually raised
to 0.60g. The two photographs at Figure 7 illustrate the
failures of the two walls forming the corner junction.
Figure 7(b) demonstrates that the failure was due to
shear sliding in the mortar bed-joint at second layer
from the base in the in-plane behaving wall. It is also
observed from Figure 7(a) that the out-of-plane
behaving wall had shown formation of cracks at its
base, but had not suffered collapse. This implies that
inclusion of L-shaped steel bars of 8mm diameter
helped in properly transferring the load from out-of-
plane behaving wall portion to the in-plane behaving
one, thereby resisting its overturning.
(a) Cracking at the base (b) Shear sliding failure at
of the out-of-plane the mortar bed-joint in the
behaving wall in-plane behaving wall
Figure 7 Failure Patterns observed in the Walls
Forming Corner Junction Reinforced with L-shaped
Steel Bars at 0.60g
The same level of acceleration of 0.60g generated
horizontal shear cracking along mortar bed-joints in
This resulted in tearing of the vertical FRP bands at the
bottommost portion of the out-of-plane behaving wall
(refer Figure 8), probably due to the high tensile force
generated by bending action of the wall.
 bearing capacity of the brick-mortar combination of
the in-plane behaving portion of the wall.

3.3 Comparative performance of the three samples

A comparative analysis of the performance of the
three types of brick masonry walls, which were put
under simulated earthquake vibrations at various
acceleration levels, is represented in Table 1. The table
represents the failure acceleration levels and failure
patterns for these masonry junctions. Comparison
between the different failure acceleration levels
indicates that the lateral strength of the junctions of the
masonry units, reinforced by steel bars and encased by
Figure 8 Tearing of PP Bands in the Out-of-plane PP bands, has increased respectively to 2.4 times and
behaving Masonry Wall forming Corner Junction 3.6 times the unreinforced one.
encased with PP Bands at 0.60g
Table 1 Failure Acceleration Levels and Failure
(c) Acceleration level 0.80g Patterns for the Brick Masonry Corner Junctions
The third masonry junction encased with PP bands
Type of
finally collapsed due to diagonal shear cracking of the Failure
brick
in-plane behaving wall at an acceleration level of 0.80g acceleration Failure pattern
masonry
(refer Figure 9). It is interesting to observe here that level (g)
junction
though horizontal shear cracking occurred along
(a) In-plane behaving
mortar bed-joints of both the out-of-plane and in-plane
wall: Shear sliding
behaving walls at an acceleration level of 0.60g, yet
failure at mortar bed-
they neither did overturn nor did suffer shear sliding
joints along with
failure when the acceleration reached a level of 0.80g.
development of
This incomplete failure at the junction, even though the
diagonal shear
in-plane behaving wall did actually collapse at the
Unreinforced 0.25 cracking initiated
acceleration level of 0.80g, shows that the encasing
from corner;
effect of the PP bands were stronger than the tension
(b) Out-of-plane
behaving wall: Failure
Out‐of‐plane  In‐plane  due to overturning,
behaving wall  behaving wall initiated from corner
cracking.
(a) In-plane behaving
Upper portion separated  wall: Shear sliding
due to diagonal shear cracking  failure at mortar bed-
Reinforced joints;
with L- (b) Out-of-plane
0.60
shaped steel behaving wall:
bars Formation of cracks
at the base of the out-
of-plane behaving
portion.
(a) In-plane behaving
wall: Diagonal shear
failure along with
horizontal shear
Encased by
cracks at base;
horizontal
0.80 (b) Out-of-plane
Horizontal  and vertical
behaving wall:
shear cracking  PP bands
Formation of
Figure 9 Diagonal Shear Cracking in the In-plane horizontal shear
Failure behaving Portion of the Junction, encased with cracking, yet did not
PP Bands at 0.80g  overturn.

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4. CONCLUSIONS
The failure acceleration levels and failure patterns
observed from the experiments conducted on
unreinforced, reinforced, and encased masonry
junctions lead to the following broad conclusions.
(a) Inclusion of L-shaped steel bars and PP band
encasing leads to an increase in lateral strength of
masonry corner junction to the extent of upto about 2.4
times or even higher compared to the unreinforced one.
However, inclusion of such reinforcements leads to
nominal increase in cost of material and its subsequent
construction.
(b) Among the reinforced ones, the masonry corner
junction strengthened with PP band meshing has
shown higher capacity. However, it failed due to
diagonal shear cracking of the in-plane behaving
portion after tension failure of PP bands; whereas the
L-shaped steel bar reinforced junction collapsed due to
shear sliding, though having lesser capacity. Pending a
detailed study on use of PP band and adequate
knowledge on its workmanship at mason’s level,
providing corner reinforcement with the frequency and
length as done in here, may be an adequate codal
prescription for improving seismic resistance of
masonry structures. In fact, this may be a suitable
choice striking balance among safety, economy, and,
ease of construction.
(c) Even after strengthening, the junctions have a
tendency of developing horizontal cracks at the base
level of masonry structures.
Such observations may be helpful in developing
empirical design guidelines for masonry structures to
be built in seismically active zones of the world.
5. FURTHER SCOPE OF STUDY
In this present study, one type of steel reinforcement
and another type of encasing by PP bands have been
applied for observing the extent of strengthening of
brick masonry corner junctions. For the sake of
completeness of understanding, similar types of
experiments may be conducted on masonry junctions
reinforced with steel-wire mesh or glass fibre
reinforced polymer (GFRP) sheets.
Further, the tests on reinforced masonry junctions
include only the variation in amplitude of base
excitation at a constant frequency of 10Hz. However,
for generalization of guidelines, the behaviour should
be studied under pulses of various frequencies and also
under real earthquake time histories. A series of tests
may be conducted to achieve this end.
Lastly, it needs to be mentioned that the strength
properties of bricks depend upon that of the clay, and
the level and extend of burning under which the bricks
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were manufactured. The quality of clay is not uniform
throughout a vast country like India, having diverse
geographic and climatic regions. Thus all the types of
experiments that has been carried out and those which
are proposed to be undertaken as future scope of study,
need to be repeated in future, taking bricks made out of
clay from different geographic regions to obtain a
region specific quantitative data. All these data may be
suitably collated for inclusion in the Codes.
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