Shake-Table Tests of a Full-Scale Two-Story Shear-Dominated Reinforced Masonry Wall Structure

This paper presents the shake-table tests of a full-scale, two-story, reinforced masonry shear-wall structure designed by a displacement-based method. The test structure had two T-sectioned and one rectangular-sectioned wall components along the direction of the table motion, and four rectangular-sectioned wall components in the orthogonal direction. The structure was subjected to a series of dynamic tests with a historical ground motion record scaled to intensity levels up to that of the maximum considered earthquake (MCE). The structure formed a soft-story mechanism during the last test. The recorded displacements were within the target limits for the design earthquake-level table motion, but exceeded the target limits for the MCE level. Although the structure experienced severe damage and incurred diagonal cracking in wall components with low aspect ratios, it did not collapse. The comparison of the analysis results to the test results shows that the walls in the orthogonal direction had a significant contribution to the lateral load resistance of the structure as they exerted axial compression through the horizontal diaphragms and lintels on the wall components parallel to the loading direction when the latter rocked. For this structure, the conventional force-based design method could result in unsatisfactory performance.