Performance of brick veneer ties under cyclic loadings

The subject of this research program was to investigate the behaviour of brick veneer ties under reversed cyclic loading. As the first step towards the performance evaluation of the behaviour of brick ties under simulated earthquake loads, tests were performed on the embedded part of brick veneer ties. Small wall elements with one veneer tie were made to represent a localized portion of a full height brick veneer wall system. Some building codes require single wire joint reinforcement in masonry veneer walls in higher seismic zones, the current investigation examined the effect of the horizontal wire joint reinforcement on the embedment performance of brick tie currently used in the Western Canada. Tests were also conducted on several different types of veneer ties available in North America for comparison purposes. One important parameter considered in the study was the effect of in-plane surcharge loads, which simulated the condition of brick ties located near the top and near the bottom support of a one story wall. The experimental study was divided into three phases. Phase I served as a pilot study to help plan the subsequent tests and to test the custom designed test apparatus for the tests. In Phase II, 18 specimens were built with one type of tie having three different conditions, which were tie only, joint reinforcement not connected to the brick ties, and joint reinforcement connected to the brick ties. Other tests were conducted using the US seismic type of ties, conventional ties and to investigate the effect of construction errors. In Phase m a modification to the connection of the tie to the horizontal wire joint reinforcement was made in order to see i f an improved performance would be achieved. Also the testing protocol was modified to investigate its influence on the tie behaviour. Evaluation of test results were based on the hysteretic curves obtained from the tests and the load displacement envelopes. Discussions are based on the comparisons of different conditions. It was observed that the peak embedment strength is influenced by the tightness of the connection of tie to the joint reinforcement. An increase in embedment strength at large displacement could be achieved with wire joint reinforcement connected to the brick ties. Overall, adding wire joint reinforcement to the brick ties only slightly influenced its embedment strength under cyclic loads.Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofGraduat