Determination of Ritter constant for hollow clay prisms under compression

The main goal of this work was to determine the Ritter constant to predict the modulus of elasticity of different hollow clay block masonry prisms under compression. For this reason, an experimental program with prisms was conducted to evaluate the Ritter constant. Two types of hollow clay blocks with net and gross area ratios of 0.39 and 0.49 and f_mortar /f_block ratios of 0.3 and 0.7 were used. Strain measurements were obtained on the front and back of the prisms. To estimate the Ritter constant for the masonry, Knutson (1993) equation for stress/strength level below 0.75 was adopted using a normalized stress/strength (σ/f_prism ) level of 0.3. The conclusion from this work is that the modulus of elasticity of masonry can be estimated using the Ritter constant with reasonable accuracy, but the value depends on the block type used and mortar compressive strength.