School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement
Seismic Performance, Analysis, and Design of Hybrid Concrete-Masonry
By: Laura Redmond
Advisor: Dr. Reginald DesRoches
Committee members:
Dr. Russell Gentry, Architecture
Dr. Barry Goodno
Dr. Lawrence Kahn
Dr. Kimberly Kurtis
Dr. Andreas Stavridis, University of Buffalo
Date & Time: November 19th, 9am
Location: SEB 122
Abstract:
Caribbean-style hybrid concrete-masonry structures consist of a reinforced concrete frame with
partially grouted and reinforced infill masonry walls. The infill walls are typically connected to
the RC frame with cast-in-place dowel reinforcement along one or more edges of the wall.
There is limited guidance in masonry codes to design these types of structures, and their
seismic performance has not been characterized with experimental tests. In this work, an
experimental program characterized the seismic behavior of hybrid concrete-masonry frames
and showed they do not exhibit the typical strut mechanism observed in unreinforced masonry
infill structures. In addition, a detailed finite element modeling scheme and calibration
methodology was developed for modeling partially grouted masonry. This model includes a
novel calibration method to account for the difference in the shear and tensile behavior of
grouted and ungrouted bed joints, and a method to account for the contribution of vertical
reinforcement to the shear capacity of the grouted bed joints. Finally, simplified models were
proposed for use in engineering design. The adaptation of the TMS 402 strut model for hybrid
concrete-masonry is suggested to incorporate the effects of the masonry infill and connections in large models.