Background
Concrete block masonry walls play a significant role in building construction due to compressive strength, fire resistance as well as their cost-effective nature. However, low tensile strength and strain capacities, poor resistance to cracking, fracture against impact loads, blast and seismic pressures are considered as major limitations of the masonry structures made of concrete blocks. These drawbacks make masonry structures vulnerable to failure and can cause severe structural damages and life losses. The concrete blocks can be made more resilient to disasters. To accomplish this task, high-energy absorbing auxetic materials can be employed to make composite concrete blocks. Auxetic materials which possess a negative Poisson’s ratio (NPR) behaviour which enable them to exhibit exceptional unique characteristics compared to conventional materials, such as high energy absorption, high shear modulus, and better bonding characteristics. In this research, additively manufactures auxetic meshes are embedded in the concrete blocks to increase their earthquake resistance which is being investigated through lab testing and computer simulations.
Research Activities
- Select the best-suited material and the geometry from the available literature to develop auxetic structures.
- Fabrication and characterisation of the auxetic structures.
- Compatibility analysis of the developed auxetic structures embedded into a concrete matrix.
- Development and characterisation of the auxetic embedded concrete block.
- Performance evaluation of the auxetic embedded masonry structures under numerical simulation of the static and cyclic loadings for their resilience.
Study level
PhD
- Concrete Masonry Association Australia (CMAA)
