BENDING OF CONCRETE MASONRY WALLETTES AT DIFFERENT ANGLES TO THE BED JOINTS.

There has been much work done on the flexural tensile strength of block masonry in the two principal material directions (normal and parallel to the bed joints). However, there is relatively little known about the strengths at different angles to the bed joint or about the interaction relationships for biaxial flexural tension. Therefore two test series were performed to provide data to assist in the development of a failure criteria for concrete block masonry subject to biaxial flexural tension. In the first series 25 wallettes were constructed with bed joints at different angles from the direction of bending. Then beam tests of these wallettes in this off-axis bending produced combinations of flexural tension normal and parallel to the bed joints. Similarly a bond wrench was used to test 92 prisms constructed with the bed joints at various angles from the direction of bending.