ASCE 7 Effective Area of parge coat over CMU wall.

[eljefeutexas]

Having trouble trying to figure out what pressure to suction test a parge coat over a CMU wall. I am guessing the coat acts as one continuous piece of cladding so that would be the least conservative 100 SF effective area? I have dug around a bit but I am not finding much. The machine will be applying 2'x2' suction but I do not think that will matter, only the test pressure I am supposed to go to.

First time poster, I love this site, have been lurking for a while. Hopefully one day I will be doing the answering.

 

[Ron]

The suction pressure is the same as any part of the wall will experience. If you have a negative pressure on the wall of 30 psf from wind load, then your loading would be 30 x 4 or 120 lbf.

What will you use as your acceptance criterion? Will it be no bond failure of the entire specimen, part of the specimen, or other? Unfortunately there are no acceptance criteria (to my knowledge) giving a requirement for bond strength of stucco or parge coats on concrete.