Masonry Shear Walls - Joint Reinforcement as Primary Shear Reinforcement
Partially grouted masonry shear walls are common in North America. Construction of partially grouted concrete masonry shear walls can benefit greatly by the placement of joint reinforcement in bed joints of each or every other course instead of deformed reinforcement in bond beams because placement and grouting of bond beams slow construction. Joint reinforcement is already used to help control cracking and provide prescriptive horizontal reinforcement. With sufficient area and ductility of wire, joint reinforcement can also provide the tension capacity to span across cracks in shear walls and to act as primary shear reinforcement for in-plane shear forces.
Reprinted with permission of The Masonry Society Journal, Vol. 36 Number 1, Dec. 2018. Copyright: The Masonry Society www.masonrysociety.org.
