Seventh International Congress on Advances in Civil Engineering, October11-13, 2006

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey

Out of Plane Performance of Confined Masonry Walls with

Different Tie-Column Configurations

Ali Ural, Adem Do angün

Karadeniz Technical University, Department of Civil Engineering, Trabzon, Turkey

Abstract
Although, confined masonry structures have been widely used masonry construction
systems in some countries, most of them have been constructed as to be plain masonry
in Turkey. In the confined system, all of the load-bearing walls are to confine all sides
with horizontal and vertical confining elements. In engineering literature, reference to
confined masonry system modeling and analysis has been rare in Turkey. But according
to the Turkish Earthquake Code, only the confined masonry buildings are given
permission to build. The purpose of this study is selected as to investigate the effects of
confining elements on out-of-plane behavior of bearing walls with numerical method.
For this purpose, the confining systems of masonry construction are briefly presented
and some requirements given in specifications are discussed. Then a number of different
confinement configurations for the masonry walls are modeled and subjected to out of
plane performance. Finite element method was used for the modeling and Drucker-
Prager yield criterion was selected to consider nonlinear material properties in the
analyses. Finally results and conclusions taken from out-of-plane behaviors of the
masonry walls with different confining elements configurations were presented.

Keywords: Confined masonry, Out-of-plane performance, Drucker-Prager yield

criterion, Finite element method.

Introduction
Most of masonry buildings in Turkey have been constructed as to be unreinforced
masonry. In these buildings there is no wall reinforcement such as steel reinforcing bars
within both horizontal and vertical directions. Also these buildings have been built just
following the traditional rules by the user or workmen without any engineering
knowledge. However lots of destructive earthquakes have occurred and caused many
losses of lives throughout the history. It must be known that earthquakes do not injure
people, structures injure people. Because no one did not interfere anything to prevent
the earthquakes but it can be prevented the loss of lives to build structures more
carefully and more durable.

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Some theoretical and experimental studies of seismic behavior of masonry have already
been subjected. By testing a series of models of plain and confined masonry walls with
in-plane dynamically imposed cyclically acting horizontal displacements, concluded
that vertical confinements significantly improve the ductility of masonry walls. Similar
conclusions have been obtained in another experimental study by Tomazevic and
Klemenc (1997a and b). The out-of-plane performance of masonry walls examined
some of the other studies subjected to simulate seismic loadings by Zhang et al. (2000).
This study is one of the most important researches about the out-of-plane behaviors of
masonry walls. The three full-scale walls, with and without openings, were constructed.
A minimum quantity of reinforcement permitted by their own country’s standard was
being used and additional diagonal bars were added to the corners of the bond beam at
the top of the wall. Conclusions about this research are useful. The bond beams make a
significant contribution to the capacity of the main wall by transferring the forces
around into the return walls.

The experimental investigations and the experiences obtained after earthquakes have
shown that confining the masonry walls with confining elements improve the general
performance of masonry structures.

Some of other studies were experienced on the strengthening of masonry walls under
lateral loadings and out-of-plane actions by Gilstrap and Dolan (1998), Paquette et al.
(2000) and Hamoush et al. (2001). However other studies on seismic behaviors of
masonry structures were performed by Casolo (2000), Doherty et al. (2002), Lam et al.
(2003), Felice and Giannini (2001) and Petersen (2002).

Masonry Structures in Turkey

In the housing fact of Turkey, despite the extensive use of modern construction
materials like reinforced concrete and steel, masonry buildings still play an important
role. Especially in the rural sides of the country, masonry buildings represent a great
majority of residential and even public buildings (Orhon, 1995). Even in countries
where developed in earthquake engineering most of the research is focused on the study
of complex structures such as high-rise buildings while little attention is given to
masonry buildings. But according to National Building Census (2000), many of Turkish
people presently live in masonry buildings. Nearly 51% of all Turkish dwelling is
constructed in masonry system as seen Table 1 and Figure 1a. Also according to the
recent physical cases of buildings in Turkey from National Building Census are
presented in Table 2 and Figure 1b.

Table1 The number of buildings in Turkey according to structural systems.

Number of
Structural System (%) percent
Buildings
Frame 3,792,092 48.38
Masonry 4,001,954 51.05
Tunnel Model 6,378 0.08
Prefabricated 23,311 0.3
Unknown 14,940 0.19
Total 7,838,675 100

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 Table 2 Number of buildings in Turkey according to physical cases.
Structural System A B C D E Total
Frame construction 2,797,982 816,041 116,903 15,646 45,520 3,792,092
Bearing wall construction 1,979,396 1,388,095 462,123 115,054 57,286 4,001,954
Tunnel model system 6,075 224 18 1 60 6,378
Prefabricated 16,700 4,978 779 350 504 23,311
Unknown 7,283 3,115 875 737 2,930 14,940
A: Not necessary alteration and repair D: Ruin building
B: Basic alteration and repair E: Unknown
C: Main alteration and repair

(a) (b)
Figure 1 Graphical illustration of the statistics according to; a) Structural systems,
b)Physical cases.

During the recent significant earthquakes in Turkey, some of the masonry buildings
were badly suffered. Figure 2 shows two of damaged masonry buildings due to the lack
of vertical confining elements. Side of load-bearing wall next to joint space failed as
shown in Figure 2a and the door opening was extremely narrowed around the middle of
the door height as shown in Figure 2b due to the lack of vertical confining elements.

(a) Damage during Kocaeli Earthquake (b) Damage during Bingöl

Earthquake

Figure 2 Damaged masonry buildings due to lack of vertical confining elements.

During the similar earthquakes, due to some of the unsuitable out-of-plane conditions,
masonry buildings partly damaged. If the connection between the walls and floors are
not adequately restrained, the whole wall panel or of a significant portion of it will
overturn due to seismic excitation in the perpendicular direction to the wall plane.
Figure 3 shows a view of out-of-plane collapse of load bearing walls vertical confining
element.

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 Figure 3 A view of load bearing walls collapsed in the out-of-plane direction during
Bingöl Earthquake.

(a) Falling of gable walls caused (b) Falling of gable wall caused death of a
broking about 20 cars child

Figure 4 Typical out-of-plane failures of unanchored gable walls during the Bingöl
earthquake.

Parapet and gable wall failures fall into this category. These non-structural unreinforced
masonry elements behave, if unrestrained, as cantilever walls extending beyond the roof
line (Bruneau and Saatçio lu, 1994). As gable walls being located at the top of the
buildings, they are subjected to the greatest amplification of the ground motions, and are
consequently prone to flexural failures under the roofs of many buildings damaged and
fallen down during the earthquakes in Turkey.

The falling of gable walls of lodgings for security personals as shown in Figure 4a
caused broking about 20 cars and the falling of gable wall as shown in Figure 4b caused
death of a child during Bingöl Earthquake. It is stated in the masonry buildings section
of Turkish Earthquake Code that in the case where the height of the end wall resting on
the horizontal bond beam at the top storey exceeds 2m, vertical and inclined bond

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beams shall be constructed. But almost all the buildings which have large gable walls in
the earthquake region did not satisfy this requirement.

Confined Masonry Buildings

According to Tomazevic (1999), confined masonry is a construction system, where
masonry structural walls are confined on all sides with confining elements combined
with tie-columns and bond-beams as seen from Figure 5. These elements are not
intended to carry either vertical or horizontal loads such as reinforced column or beam
elements. Although these elements are not designed to perform as moment-resisting
frames, it is generally assumed that they prevent disintegration and improve the ductility
of the wall. Besides, when vertical and horizontal confinements are working with each
other, they assumed as a frame system to resist seismic actions. Also according to TS
ENV 1996-1-1 (2001), it has been proposed that when predicting the seismic behavior
of confined masonry walls to increase the earthquake performance, the effects of these
elements must be neglected.

Figure 5 Different confining techniques on masonry walls

The behavior of masonry buildings is improved when the walls are connected together
with bond-beams on the top of the walls. In this case the walls are almost rigidly
supported on all four boundaries. The building behaves like a box and all the walls
contribute to the resistance of the building.

In order to be effective, confining elements should be located at all corners and recesses
of the building and at all crossings and joints of structural walls. Additionally,
depending on the seismic zone such R.C. tie-columns should be located at all free
extremities of structural walls, and at all opening sides, exceeding the recommended
size (Orhon, 1995).

First of all these confining elements improve in the connection between structural walls.
Then they improve in the stability of slender structural walls and reduce in the risk of
disintegration of masonry panels damaged by earthquakes. Also they improve in the
strength and ductility of masonry panels.

Turkish Earthquake Code (2006) has some requirements about masonry structures to
prevent the significant damages of masonry buildings. For this paper from the authors’
decision, it is suitable to give these requirements on the following 3D masonry sample
(Figure 6).

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 φ 120mm φ8mm

200mm 200m
φ8mm m
Min φ10

3m
250mm

Confining elements
(bond beams,
tie elements)

1,5m (for earthquake zone 1 and 2)

3m 1,0m (for earthquake zone 3 and 4)
0,5m 4m

200mm
Figure 6 Some requirements for confined masonry given in Turkish Earthquake Code.

Analysis Cases
Determining the out-of-plane behavior of masonry walls, several analyses cases are
carried out on the mathematical models. All of the models have been assumed as
simplified micro-modeling procedure. For the suggested modeling strategy, masonry
brick units, which are expanded in both directions by mortar thickness, are modeled
with continuum elements. This modeling strategy is also illustrated from Figure 7.

hm
hu
hm

Interface elements
(joints)
Zero thickness
hu+hm

Continuum elements
(units)
Figure 7 Suggested modeling strategy.

Mortar joints and potential cracks in the units are modeled with zero-thickness interface
elements; see Lourenço (1996) for a comprehensive review. The dimensions of
expanded bricks used at the models are 300x200x150 mm3 and these values are taken
from the Turkish Code (TS 705, 1985). According to the Turkish Earthquake Code
(2006), the minimum thicknesses of the confining elements have to be taken 200 mm.
Therefore, all the thicknesses of these elements assumed as 200 mm., for the plane
view. To determine the effects of the windows or doors on wall, all models assumed as
to be opening. A window has been located at the center of the wall and has a 950x795

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mm2 dimensions. All expanded brick elements are modeled with 3-D solid elements and
freedoms at the base nodes are fully fixed, for other nodes left free. For the modeling
LUSAS (2006) software, which has a wide range of finite-element types and material
models, is selected.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 8 Description of mathematical models used for the analyses; a) Model-1,
b) Model-2, c) Model-3.

At the first model, it has been used only bond-beam at the top of the masonry wall. At
the second model, two of the tie-columns have been used on the both ends of the wall
together with bond-beam. At the third model four tie-columns have been used on both
ends of the wall and opening. Also the bond-beam on the top of the wall has been used
for this model. For all models, a global distributed loading as 100N over the top of the
bond-beam along the direction of +y has been considered.

The elastic and plastic properties of the materials have been assumed as to be used from
the literature. It is essential to choose a suitable yield criterion in order to analyze any
member using classical plasticity concepts. The analytical model of Drucker-Prager
yield criterion which is a smooth approximation of the Mohr-Coulomb theory is used to
model the nonlinear behavior of concrete (Doran, 2003). This yield criterion is a two-
parameter model and is defined by cohesion, c, and the internal friction angle, φ. The
internal friction angle is approximately between 30o and 35o, which can be found by
drawing various tangent lines to the compressive meridian, obtained from triaxial
experimental data of concrete (Köksal et al., 2005). Similarly, for the masonry modeling
Drucker-Prager yield criterion has also been used by the authors (Ural and Do angün
2006a; Ural et al. 2006b) and the others (Koçak, 1996; Köksal et al., 2005). In this
study, for the nonlinear behavior of the masonry walls, the friction angles and initial
cohesions of the materials have been taken as to be 33o and 3 respectively. The strain
and stress contours of the models (Figure 9, 10) and strain-stress graph (Figure 11a-b)
obtained from the results of the analyses are shown below.

(Model-1) (Model-2) (Model-3)

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 Figure 9 Strain contours of models.

(Model-1) (Model-2) (Model-3)

Figure 10 Stress contours of models.

According to the analyses results, subjected to out-of-plane performance of free

standing masonry walls behaves as a nonlinear form. The value of stress about 5MPa,
some significant cracks may occur from this value. Maximum strain values for all
models are represented by the symbols which have been occurred especially at the
bottom of the wall specimens. Also at the both ends on the bottom of the openings,
maximum strains have been occurred. From this result, with opening walls, these
locations on the walls have a significant role subjected to out-of-plane bending.
σ (N/mm2)

(a)

ε
Total Load Factor (%)

(b)

d (mm)

Figure 11 (a) Stress-Strain relationships of the models, (b) Out-of-plane total load factor
- displacement graphs of the models.

Conclusions
Many out-of-plane damages for masonry walls were observed during the recent Turkey
earthquakes. Therefore it is necessary to investigate out of plane performance of bearing
walls. In this paper, this performance was investigated for three different bearing wall

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models. As known, the free standing wall considered as Model 1 in this study is not
suitable to the out-of-plane forces in applications. On the other hand subjected to in-
plane forces, its resistance will be much greater and it becomes a shear wall.

Tie-columns considered in the third model have not been contributing a remarkable
assistance to the out of plane performance of the wall. But it should be noted that when
it is considered as a whole system tie-columns have a vital role during earthquakes.
Because they work as a frame system and transfer the excessive loading affects to the
other confining elements.

Gable walls are located at the top of the buildings using to complete the roof space.
These walls are subjected to the greatest amplification of the ground motions, and are
consequently prone to out-of-plane failures. To prevent this matter vertical and inclined
bond beams should also been constructed.

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