Browsing by Author "De Villiers, Wibke Irmtraut"

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    Computational and Experimental Modelling of Masonry Walling towards Performance-Based Standardisation of Alternative Masonry Units for Low-Income Housing
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) De Villiers, Wibke Irmtraut; Van Zijl, G. P. A. G.; Boshoff, William Peter; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Civil Engineering.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa has a housing shortage estimated in excess of 2 million units. This backlog is being addressed predominantly with the construction of 40m2 low-cost, single storey, detached state subsidised houses built with conventional masonry units (CMU’s), namely concrete and burnt clay. The use of these materials has a significant negative impact on the environment and the thermal performance of conventional masonry walls is generally poor. These factors, and others, have led to the development of alternative masonry units (AMU’s) in South Africa, and internationally, with a lesser environmental impact and improved thermal performance. However, lack of standards presents a significant barrier to the uptake of AMU’s The regulatory framework governing the use of masonry in South Africa, and possible avenues through which AMU’s could gain access to the market, are explored. It is found that AMU’s could provide a reasonable and socially acceptable alternative to CMU’s in low-income housing (LIH) but the current regulatory framework does not accommodate AMU’s in a sufficiently practical manner to enable their widespread, off-the-shelf uptake. The ongoing process of the adoption of Eurocode 6 and the accompanying materials and testing standards by the South African masonry industry, facilitates the transition from prescriptive to performance-based (PB) regulation of masonry design. It is proposed that material non-specific, PB requirements for masonry units for structural application in LIH can be developed to assist the inclusion of AMU’s in the open market. To quantify PB criteria, two critical configurations of single-storey bonded masonry walls are generated, based on the deemed-to-satisfy provisions of the National Building Regulations (NBR). Subsequently, a simplified micro-scale finite element (FE) model is used to analyse these configurations under serviceability and ultimate limit state loading conditions, to serve as a performance prediction model from which PB criteria can be derived. Four masonry materials are selected for the study; conventional concrete (CON), alkali-activated material or geopolymer (GEO), compressed-stabilised earth (CSE) and adobe (ADB), representing a wide spectrum in terms of strength and stiffness. Characterisation tests of the four materials are used, together with numerical fitting to test data and data taken from literature, to generate the necessary parametric input for the FE model. The results of medium to large-scale in-plane and out-of-plane tests are used for validation of the FE model. The FE analyses revealed that for most of the load cases, the resistances of the walls failed to achieve the design load, even for the conventional CON blocks. A significant shortfall was found for the out-of-plane resistance against the wind load for all four materials, as well as structural vulnerability under seismic loading due to the geometric layout permitted by the deemed-to-satisfy rules in the NBR. These results preclude the immediate derivation of PB criteria for AMU’s but contribute significantly to the body of knowledge surrounding FE modelling of AMU’s. They also indicate that the NBR provisions for wall panel geometry require reconsideration, given the recent revision of the South African loading code. However, material non-specific PB regulation is still the recommended avenue for the standardised inclusion of AMU’s.