Experimental Study On Seismic Performance Of Autoclaved Aerated Concrete Block Load Bearing Walls

Masonry structure is mainly applied in the multistory building in China nowadaysand in the future. There are many problems on the masonry structure made oftraditional building materials, the most serious of which is that the clay solid brickshave brought a lot of hazards to entironment and society economy. Autoclaved aeratedconcrete (AAC) is a new building material with great developing space, and AACload bearing block structural system is hopeful in multistory building.In this paper, based on the experimental investigation of quasi-static test of 6AAC block walls, the features such as failure feature, seismic shear strength,deformation behavior, dissipative capacity and stiffness degradation of the AAC blockwalls are studied and analyzed, and failure features and seismic performances of thewalls due to different height to width ratios and vertical pressing stresses are alsostudied. By analyzing the factors that affect the masonry shear strength, and on thebasis of experimental results and the existing masonry seismic shear strength theoriesand formulas, the seismic shear strength formula of the AAC walls is presented. Theformula coincides well with the experimental results and can be used for calculatingthe seismic shear strength of AAC walls in practice projects. The comparisons andanalyses with other block walls' failure feature, force-displacement relation, seismicshear strength and deformation behavior are also carried out, which made of fly ashaerated concrete block, clay solid brick, shale-farinosecoal porous brick and concretesmall hollow block. The results indicate that though the strength of the AAC block islow, the AAC block wall can be used as load bearing wall of multistory buildingstructural system with better ductility.