Cyclic testing of single bay confined masonry walls with various connection details

The test results of nine confined masonry wall specimens, with three different connection details between the masonry and the tie-columns and one unreinforced masonry wall, are presented. The specimens were executed and were tested under constant vertical and cyclic lateral loads. Failure modes, hysteresis loops, resistance envelope curves, averaged evaluated bilinear response envelope curves and behaviour factors were all obtained. Confinement brought an increase in the stiffness, lateral load capacity, ductility and hysteretic energy dissipation of the walls. The connection details did not influence the initial stiffness or the maximum lateral resistance, but they did improve the nonlinear wall behaviour, behaviour factors and hysteretic energy dissipation. They also helped in activating the whole wall for lateral load resistance and maintained its composite behaviour well into the nonlinear range. The measured behaviour factors of all the specimens were above the values suggested by the Eurocodes. The analytical expressions available differed from the prediction quality of the measured results.