Facts You Should Know About Masonry Reinforcement
By Edwin L. Saxer: Professor and Chairman, Civil Engineering Department, University of Toledo
For some time, there has been a growing tendency to rely on steel reinforcing in mortar joints to improve the capacity of masonry walls to resist the stresses which develop.
The usage of joint reinforcement has often proven unsuccessful in the past. The chief reason for this has been the failure to use reinforcement in more than every third or fourth joint a practice which provides little or no benefit to the intermediate joints.
A contributing factor in many cases has been the inability of some forms of reinforcing to develop adequate bond strength.
As a result of research at the University
of Toledo, and at other laboratories, the principles of effective joint reinforcement are now well understood. All indications point to the fact that reinforcement should be used in every joint, or at least in every other joint, to insure reasonable effectiveness.
Our research on the effectiveness of Key-Wall leads us to the following conclusions: (1) The design of Key-Wall results in a highly efficient distribution of steel. (2) The use of Key-Wall can reduce significantly the cracks resulting from shrinkage of the masonry; and (3) Key-Wall is effective in improving the lateral strength characteristics of masonry walls.