Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
(OP)
Hi guys,
Was hoping someone could shed some light on horizontal vs vertical bending of brick walls. I'm guessing if you had a wall that's restrained too and bottom then you would probably only need to design for horizontal bending of the brickwork. When would you look at both horizontal and vertical?
Was hoping someone could shed some light on horizontal vs vertical bending of brick walls. I'm guessing if you had a wall that's restrained too and bottom then you would probably only need to design for horizontal bending of the brickwork. When would you look at both horizontal and vertical?






RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
As PengStruct suggests, the wall panel will tend to span in the direction of the shorter span length, and you might design it that way. There is no doubt that there is some two-way spanning action of the wall panels too. The horiz. (bed) joints are fairly weak because they are continuous, and because bond and tensile strengths are so low. But, they have the benefit of gravity loads (DL only?) cancelling out some of the tensile stress which you are designing to prevent. Spanning from column (or pilaster) to column the joint weakness is less significant because the joints are not continuous, except in stacked bond.
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
The answer is code specific. We have a lot of questions on this site about horizontal cracking in basement walls, I think mostly in the US, where that residential code must allow unreinforced basement walls.
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
The residential code does allow un-reinforced masonry basement walls. But I believe ACI-530 also allows flexural tension regardless of orientation (at least it used to).
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
The problem with some small contractors building basements is quite common, maybe because of loose specifications and/or controls. Also, the ignorance of the possible availability of CMU units. - There are many CMUs that could be used for higher loads, while the range of availability of clay brick configurations is limited.
Some smaller contractors are certainly a questionable labor source, but the good ones do superior work (in comparison to some larger contractors/builders and do a great deal of the basements because of the creativity and ability to handle small basement efficiently from a logistic and construction/quality basis. - I have seen this based on about 25 years experience as an engineer and material supplier on codes and material standards (TMS, ACI, ASTM and many local and state codes).
There are many unique units that have been used domestically and internationally for CMU construction. Unfortunately, the domestic (U.S.) engineers have not used the resources and units available in comparison to many foreign engineers/contractors/builders using ACI 530. The ACI 530 document is the basis for most international masonry designs.
Even for the lowly basement, some builders have created reliable construction methods and the ability to use the same systems and CMU for both reinforced an unreinforced. As a supplier, we had a larger home builder (200 to 400 homes per year) that had unique CMU shapes made for him. He could afford to pay a higher price for specific units that were more economical and provided a higher quality home.
Dick
Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls
RE: Vertical and horizontal bending of brick walls