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Resilient Design & Masonry

22K views 183 replies 15 participants last post by  Kris Johnson 
#1 ·
A somewhat recent buzz word in the design / architectural arena is the term resilient design. The gist of it is to design / build buildings for the long haul,centuries if not longer. These buildings should be capable of withstanding natural and anthroprogenic (man made disasters,like terrorism). That said,obviously masonry has a real good chance to play a big role in that arena.


Was giving this topic considerable thought for some time.Re-enforced masonry appears to hold much promise to "assist" buildings to withstand high wind loading and seismic events. Having examined the pitfalls of rusting of steel embedded in concrete and masonry,(yes even epoxy and galvanized steel along with stainless) . I started to examine the possibilities of plastic re-bar for such applications. For what I read,the tensile strength is more than steel size for size.


Does anyone have any experience with plastic re bar ?
 
#124 ·
Another aspect of resilient design that receives little attention is fire resistance.It is thought about more often in multi family construction however,it is very slowly gaining traction in the single family arena.

In certain mid-west states there have been a rather large concentration of adjacent communities (last count 18 adjoining suburbs) mandating fire suppression systems to be installed in all new single family construction. While it is a step in the right direction,it is not the complete answer.

In a way,it could actually be a source of false security. Statistics show that the National average of fire sprinkler failure is 16 %. That percentage takes into consideration the rather strict monitoring that takes place in commercial,multi family and institutional buildings. I could only imagine if a HO is left in charge of their sprinkler system how often it would even be given a second thought. Reason being,those systems need constant vigilance to assure they are in fact operating correctly.

Masonry on the other hand is a passive system (no moving parts) and offers protection 24/7. By it's nature it does not contribute to flame spread and in essence works as a fire containment barrier.
 
#126 · (Edited)
I don't blame you. They are butt-ugly. But I got to tell you, puny pissant sandbags built the largest sandbag wall (50 ft) in the tiniest little town of Ste Genevieve, against the greatest flood (The 500 Year Extreme) on the Mississippi -biggest river in America - and while other levies and dams and earthworks broke - ours held.

The high-tech steel and concrete controls in St. Louis - FAILED.

THAT is what clued me into the idea that plain old earth - as neanderthal as it sounds, really was a superior material - IF it is understood.

When I started "hepping out" on "The Burlap Wall", the Army Corp of Engineers rolled up - big entourage of muckity-mucks - shoved a document in my face and told me I had to stop. The maximum height of a sandbag buttress could not exceed 3 feet they said. Any more bags set would just risk everyone down river, and anyone doing so would be arrested on Federal charges.

Below is a link to a Army Corp PDF - they appropriated everything we learned in Ste Genevieve and made it their own - leaving out how they formerly were against such large scale efforts. They also chortle how they distributed 6 million sandbags all over. Hell, we did that many ourselves - no help from the Corp either.

What is left out, is right after the Corp was out of eyesight, my newest best friend Jack Oberle, was standing there with his neighbors, tears streaming down his face: "what do we do now, start packing up the house, I guess?"

Hmm, nope. So we started sandbagging, and we never stopped.

NOTE: We didn't know how we were going to do this, only that it had to be done, and so, it would get done.

http://wri.usace.army.mil/remr/bulletins/Vol11-No02.pdf

In that bottom picture, you can see me in the process of becoming a "World Class Sandbagger".
 

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#130 ·
Who those people are in Ste Genevieve - well they are like that every day. It defies explanation.

In the fall of that year, I'm a guest at a high school football game, sitting with other "higher ups" in the end zone. I added up the weights of the 2 teams - the out of towners had a 2,000# advantage and Ste Genevieve beat them handily. At that time, Ste Genevieve had been state champs something like 17 times.

We called that massive sandbag construction "The Burlap Wall". Relied mostly on what I could remember of dry-stack stone walls, plus cross-weaving courses into each other, plus buttresses, plus some dumb luck.

Point of it to me is, that if I just stand with a garden hose and squirt it at a pile of dirt, the dirt washes away. Do the same with a stack of earth contained in any way - through compaction, bagging, firing in a kiln, and it just sits there and looks at ya.
 
#138 ·
2 things poke out from the first chapter. Even though there was an indigenous manufacture of brick and glass, they were still imported as ballast and cargo. 150# of tobacco was the going rate for a thousand brick in mid 1700 Virginia. That is mind boggling expensive, say 2000$ per M today. And wood was cheap.
 
#140 ·
I certainly hear what you are saying,however,in all the books I have ever read that referenced that point of imported brick (and there are quite a few) as ballast,not a single one emphatically has ever pointed to a building that they said was made of such brick.
 
#142 ·
For those who may have missed it,FHB mag. issue # 253 ran an article called Designing For Durability. That article is an introduction to the much more extensive free on line HUD guide entitled Durability by Design.


I have not read the entire report,however,I thought I would share the connection with CT viewers who may be interested in exploring it.


http://newportpartnersllc.com/PDFs/...gn_Version_2.0-Preliminary_Draft_July2015.pdf
 
#143 ·
fjn,

I know you are familiar with one particular type of brick construction.

On those:
Have studies for year-round energy costs been performed?

How does it come up in conversation with the customer? That is, are total energy costs an important/frequent question? Or not an issue at that market segment?

Just searched the whole thread again, to find what you said about patching the patches:

http://www.contractortalk.com/f48/resilient-design-masonry-201993/index2/#post3125938
 
#147 ·
To answer your questions,as best as I can no,the final energy study / report I'M aware of is not totally definitive. In other words,the jury is still out.


After reading reports,papers and trade publication articles regarding mass walls and energy performance,I'M left with the opinion they work best in a rather small segment of the United States (South West) They are not the magical silver bullet / answer to our energy woes as one would like them to be. Wishing does not make it so.


Your question made me chuckle,for it brought back a back cover of a masonry council publication from the mid eighties. Here it is,back then,the fiberglass insulation producers were running adds saying things like do you realize it takes 15 ft. of masonry to equal one inch of fiberglass's R value (or some such silly thing). The masonry organization retaliated with their silly add. In it,they had a cartoon of the 3 pigs (ariel view) from space. The pigs were sitting on a huge block of fiberglass insulation. The caption read,"do you realize it takes one cubic mile of fiberglass to equal the compression strength of one cubic inch of masonry.


Bottom line,don't use fiberglass insulation for the structure of your building and don't use masonry for your insulation.:laughing: Unless,you live in Phoenix or some such place.
 
#144 ·
It seems to me our thread title is too narrow.

Resilient Design ="the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of stress or disturbance. It is the capacity to bounce back after a disturbance or interruption."

Not to say the discussion is not interesting or appropriate. I think we are talking about how can we build a more appropriate masonry building.

Sorry but part of me has been bothered by the subject.
 
#145 · (Edited)
Fred started asking about what alternatives for steel re bar.

For 1-2 stories can I get around using re bar if my mass wall is big enough?

If re bar is needed in the lintel what if i expose the re bar instead of embedding it in the wall? What if i design it so the steel can be replaced after a century?

I believe in most of the earthquakes in the last few years the damage is not because of not using reinforcement but becuase buildings are poorly built.

I need a store building for grains. 4.8m x 7.5m ( ~15' x 30' ) with a vaulted masonry roof. I want the walls to be 40cm rammed earth, and foundation is stone. Can i get away with OUT steel in the foundation? WITHOUT Steel in the lintel?
 
#151 ·
Dom-Mas: RE: Using arches v lintels, Don't for get the flatter the Arch the greater mass needed to 'Pin' down the abuttments, thus the use of 'Gothic' Arches to change the load path to mostly vertical...

Precast Post tension lintels allow for wide window/openings with out the thermal losses inherent angle and plate steel lintels and thermal fatigue cycling issues.

Masonry alone just doesn't have much tensile strength, intelligence use of components with cheaper per unit tensile strength allows the design of much cheaper or bigger buildings for the same investment. The use of PCL mortars instead of Masonry Cements with ingredients that improve plasticity and or board lifetimes while reducing tensile strengths to near zero is driven by the savings created with truly bonded together masonry units.
 
#153 ·
Dom-Mas: RE: Using arches v lintels, Don't for get the flatter the Arch the greater mass needed to 'Pin' down the abuttments, thus the use of 'Gothic' Arches to change the load path to mostly vertical...
Yeas absolutely but my comment is still the same, if he wants to get away from embedded steel do it altogether by using pure masonry, not by putting the steel in a different more easily replaceable spot, because within the masonry is the only place that it's doing any good

Masonry alone just doesn't have much tensile strength, intelligence use of components with cheaper per unit tensile strength allows the design of much cheaper or bigger buildings for the same investment.
But that cheaper investment doesn't pay off in the long run which is what much of this discussion is about
 
#154 ·
Mea Culpua. By "cheaper" I meant less $ for the same amount of interior space.

Just as the least cost bridge beam or column has concrete in compression and steel in tension, a 100 $ of concrete can hold up more than 100 $ of steel, but a 100 $ steel cable member can hold upwards of several hundred times what a brick and lime mortar rope could resist.
The same logic applies to masonry parts & metal as to concrete & steel.

Placing the Masonry/thermal mass backup/structural wythe inside the insulation layer greatly lowers the differential stress between iron and masonry.

As a product of several thousand years of Western Culture, I am more concerned regarding threats from our Government's glutinous consumption of wealth that precludes the vast majority of citizens from ever owning a Masonry home, no matter how superior to their current chicken coops.

a socialist or progressive State has NO interest in individuals owning any property of quality except as a source of income, Any silly libertarians will be taxed out of their heirloom quality homes into the poor house and a good socialist voter will be allowed to occupy the house as in 'Dr. Zhivago'
 
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