Effects of Technology of Placing Different Types of Reinforcement in Bed Joints on Compressive and Shear Strength of AAC Masonry Walls

Reinforcement for bed joints in masonry structures is commonly applied to prevent crack propagation and to increase values of cracking stress, and compressive or shear strength. Recommendations on construction only suggest that a cladding layer of mortar should be uniformly applied to top and bottom parts of the reinforcement. This paper presents results from testing reinforced and unreinforced masonry walls made of AAC (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete). Main tests were performed on 12 wall elements with the length l = 1180 m, height h = 1208-1212 mm, and thickness t = 180 mm. All the walls were reinforced with steel truss structures or fiberglass meshes. We used single mortar laying in all six models, where the reinforcement was embedded into mortar. The double mortar laying was applied in other six models. The models were subjected to compression in accordance with European code PN-EN 1052-1:2000 and diagonal tension in accordance with American code ASTM E519-81. We compared the obtained results of cracking force and stress with the tests (Jasiński, Drobiec 2016) on walls with and without steel truss. The technology of placing reinforcement was similar. We demonstrated that single mortar laying led to noticeably lower values of cracking and failure stresses in comparison to the unreinforced walls. A favourable increase in compressive and shear strength was observed for the technology of double mortar laying.