Textile reinforcement in the bed joint of basement masonry and infill walls subjected to high wind loads / Textile Bewehrung in der Lagerfuge von Kellermauerwerk und windbelasteten Ausfachungswänden

The successful structural verification of basement walls under earth pressure loading with light vertical loading is often difficult. This situation is often encountered for external basement walls under terrace doors, stairs, masonry light wells, etc., where the vertical loading that is theoretically necessary is absent. This makes it impossible to resist the acting flexural forces from earth using a vertical arch model alone. In such cases the basement wall must also resist the earth pressure in a horizontal direction. However, due to the fact the bending moment capacity of unreinforced masonry parallel to the bed joint is low you have the option here of using a textile-reinforced bed joint with longitudinal fibres of alkali-resistant glass or carbon fibre. With an appropriately adapted textile reinforcement in the bed joints, the masonry can fulfil the requirements for load-bearing capacity against earth pressure with a horizontal load transfer, even under a small vertical load. The same applies to infill walls subjected to high wind loads the bending moment capacities of which are also slightly parallel to and vertically to the bed joint and cannot be provably demonstrated on large infill surfaces and strong wind loads. The load-bearing can also be increased by improving the flexural strength parallel to the bed joint. The Chair of Structural Design in the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University (TU) Dresden was carrying out extensive numerical and experimental studies for this purpose. In the journal Mauerwerk 01/2018 [1] first findings from small trial series have already been presented. In the meantime, a series of large-scale tests have additionally been performed to check the promising results of the small-scale tests with respect to their real applicability. This report should provide a combined insight into the work of the concluded research project.