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Abstract
An experimental programme was developed to improve our understanding of the actual in situ strength of non-structural components in typical South Australian unreinforced masonry (URM) construction. The focus was on testing URM walls and chimneys in out-of-plane direction, and in the course of this study 132 as-built URM material specimens were collected. The specimens were tested either in situ or in laboratory. In total, four URM houses located in Darlington, a southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia, were studied. Three of the buildings were built in the 1960s and the fourth was built in the 1980s. A comparison between the buildings material strength and the default values recommended in the Australian Masonry Standards, AS3700, suggests that the code specified default lower 5% characteristic values were often greater than the measured characteristic strength. The collected data are presented for documentation and some comparison between this and other studies are also made.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Australian Research Council through its Cooperative Research Centre programme and specifically the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. The assistance of the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI), South Australia, is acknowledged for allowing access to the structures prior to their scheduled demolition. The work done by Dr. Wade Lucas, the University of Adelaide’s technical staff at Chapmans Laboratory, and several undergraduate Honours students in conducting some of the material tests are gratefully acknowledged. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the sponsors.