ABSTRACT
Experimental research has been performed previously to measure the out-of-plane (OOP) seismic performance of in-situ and retrofitted unreinforced clay brick masonry (URM) walls with solid thicknesses of contiguous and overlapped masonry leaves. The earthquake vulnerability of buildings constructed using unreinforced clay brick masonry construction prior to the introduction of modern earthquake loading standards is well-known in New Zealand. The retrofit cavity tie types were tested in direct tension following their installation into URM walls at the Auckland building. Buildings in Australasia with load-bearing URM walls typically have timber diaphragms which have been experimentally shown to provide little to no arching action to URM walls. Different OOP test procedures such as quasi- static airbag tests and dynamic shake table tests on URM walls can provide comparable results, although spectral amplifications in dynamic tests can make consistent comparisons of test results difficult in some cases depending on damage patterns.
