a. The plots of stress distribution on the reinforced wall taken at varying time intervals are shown in Table 3 below. Deflection contours for the same wall are shown at the Appendix.
Table 3. Stress Distributions
Plot of vertical stress contours at 1.0ms. The stress levels in the compressive zone at the base of wall are high enough to crush the bricks. This zone corresponds to an area on the test wall that exhibited front face brick failure.
After approximately 1.5ms, the wall starts to bend at the edges and compressive horizontal stresses form at the vertical brick joints on the front face. This compressive force is also large enough to crush of the brick edges as seen in the
tests.
Also at 1.5ms, a horizontal tensile stress zone develops on the back face, commensurate with the bending action. The maximum tensile stress occurs at the centre of each brick, reducing horizontally towards the mortar joints. The joints have
already failed since stresses are excess of the mortar tensile strength.
