Shock Table Studies on Brick Masonry Building Models Subjected to Base Motion[K.

Ravi Shakar; January 2000; Supervised By K. S. Jagadish] In this project work an attempt has been made to study the failure pattern of a box-type unreinforced masonry building under the action of base motion. Prior to the testing, free vibration study was carried out to obtain the fundamental mode shape, frequency and damping. For the purpose of base motion simulation, a shock table was fabricated such that the cross walls (longer walls) of the box-type structure were subjected to out-of-plane motion. Also, due to the limitation of input energy, a scaling ratio of 1/6 was adopted. To reproduce the typical disposition of bricks, which is an important feature of a typical masonry building, scaled bricks were made. The scaled bricks were made of stabilized mud. The scaling facilitated drastic reduction m the mass on the shock table. Two scaled model buildings were tested; one made of cement mortar and the other made of lime mortar. The accelerations at the base of the model, and at two points on the building were measured, The strength and elastic properties of the masonry used were measured. This has been used in the linear finite element dynamic analysis. The experimental results were compared with FEA. It has been concluded that shock table study is very useful in understanding the dynamic behavior of simple masonry structures. Further work needs to be carried out to achieve better scaling requirements for dynamic testing.

A comparison of design seismic forces for tall building for various international building codes