PSI - Issue 44

Marta Del Zoppo et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 44 (2023) 2158–2165 Del Zoppo et al./ Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2022) 000 – 000

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steel loading rollers, as shown in Fig. 1a. The distance between the two loading rollers is 605 mm. The boundary condition of simply supported beam is achieved through a reaction system at the rear of the specimens, see Fig. 1b. (a) (b)

Fig. 1. (a) Front view of the setup, (b) rear view of the setup. The supports are placed at a distance of 185 mm from the top and bottom of the walls. The axial load is applied by means of two hydraulic jacks connected to the strong floor with cylindrical hinges. The load is transferred to the specimen through a stiff steel beam, as shown in Fig. 1a. Steel rollers are placed at the top and bottom of the wall to allow the free deformation of the specimen under the imposed load condition, as visible in Fig.1. The specimens are tested under the application of a moderate constant compressive axial load (axial load ratio 0.7) and a monotonically increasing load perpendicular to the wall surface. The test is carried out under displacement control with a displacement rate of 0.01 mm/s. The overall horizontal load applied to the wall is measured by means of a load cell (capacity 100 kN). The out-of-plane deformation of the specimens is measured by means of six LVDTs and four lasers. Six additional LVDTs are also placed in the parallel direction to the walls to measure the crack openings. In detail, two critical zones identified for the potential development of cracks are the bed joints placed near the steel loading rollers. Additionally, LVDTs are also placed on the bed joint at the middle of the wall. The layout of the instruments is depicted in Fig. 2.

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Fig. 2. Instrumentation layout (quotes in mm).