Equivalency of the diagonal shear strength of plastered and non-plastered lightweight brick walls to the strength of red brick walls

Abstract

Simple (non-engineered) house buildings are so popular in Indonesia. However, the vast majority of these buildings were damaged in the past earthquake events. In such building type, the masonry walls contribute as structural elements to withstand the load. Currently, the innovation that is emerged to be favoured by the community is lightweight brick walls, therefore, such kinds of walls need to be deeply and widely explored by a series of research. The purposes of this study are to compare the maximum shear loads between plastered and non-plastered brick walls as well as lightweight brick walls with various thicknesses through laboratory tests and to find the equality of maximum shear loads lightweight brick walls against red brick walls. This study used laboratory test and literature study. This study concludes that, the addition of plaster on a lightweight brick wall provides additional maximum load to the wall in the amount of 74,6336%. Maximum load of non-plastered red brick walls is equivalent to the strength of a non-plastered light brick wall with a thickness of 47.26 mm. For plastered red brick walls, maximum load to carry is equivalent to plastered lightweight brick walls with a thickness of 168.76 mm.