Moment capacities of unreinforced masonry sections in bending

Abstract

Current unreinforced masonry design relies on limited models of flexural behaviour in the orthogonal and inclined directions, which are partly empirical and do not fully account for the beneficial effects of compressive stress. This paper presents the results of a theoretical and experimental investigation to develop improved expressions for the horizontal and diagonal bending moment capacities contributing to the ultimate wall strength. The new expressions were verified against experimental data and were shown to give accurate predictions of the bending strength for 63 full-scale wall panels, including walls with openings, using the virtual work method of AS 3700.