Shear design equation and updated fragility functions for partially grouted reinforced masonry shear walls

Abstract

This paper proposes specific ultimate shear strength expressions for partially-grouted reinforced masonry (PG-RM) shear walls that are bed-joint reinforced (BJR) and made with either multi-perforated clay bricks (MPCLBs) or hollow concrete blocks (HCBs). For each unit type, a set of constant coefficients of an arbitrary mathematical expression is optimized to minimize the error against experimental databases of walls made with the same unit types. Additionally, the assembled databases are employed to calculate lognormal empirical fragility functions, following performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) methodologies. For this, two different engineering demand parameters (EDPs) (story drift ratio, SDR, and normalized diagonal shear demand, NDSD) are proposed, and two damage states (DS) (named DS4 for moderate damage and DS5 for severe damage) are investigated. The proposed shear formulae are used in the normalization of calculated NDSD values. Moreover, databases are sorted by a selected design parameter (aspect ratio) to calculate design parameter-sensitive fragility functions.