Analysis of precast lintels behaviour in walls confined by reinforced lightweight and ordinary concrete

Abstract

This paper presents the test results of reinforced precast lintels made of autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) used to cover window openings in walls made of AAC masonry units. Walls were confined with reinforced lightweight concrete. The two variants of wall confinement with different way of lintel support and the static diagram of a simply supported beam and a constrained beam were tested. Cracks and deformations of test models around window openings were recorded with the Aramis software for non-contact measurements of displacements. Failure of lintels caused the loss of load capacity of test models. Lintels were cracked in the same way, but the sequence of crack formation and their location were different. The test results were compared with the test made for similar walls confined with ordinary concrete. Additional tie-columns did not significantly affected the load capacity of the test models contrary to the walls confined with ordinary concrete.

Keywords

• autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC)
• precast lintels
• Digital Image Correlation (DIC)
• confined wall
• lightweight concrete