Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES, cilt.41, sa.8, ss.1345-1361, 2008 (SCI-Expanded)
Load bearing walls of masonry type construction are weak in tension and wall failure in out-of-plane bending direction is one of the common failure mechanisms. Out-of-plane bending capacity and behavior can be greatly enhanced by post-tensioning. Developing countries commonly have poor and under educated population living in self-constructed masonry houses, which are at high risk if they are located on seismically active regions. Vast amounts of used tires, which contain steel-mesh and wires vulcanized with rubber coating, can be recycled as a structural strengthening material for post-tensioning masonry house walls. This study presents the behavior and capacity of scrap tire tread-rings (STRs) and rim-rings under direct tension. STR usage for post-tensioning is demonstrated on two full-scale strip wall test specimens made from hollow concrete bricks. STRs provided average of 133 kN force and 35 MPa stress capacities in tension which can be used for masonry wall post tensioning. The out-of-plane bending capacity of the two test walls increased about 5 times. STR usage with custom design connectors is a very promising alternative for low-cost masonry wall post-tensioning.