COMPRESSIVE PROPERTIES OF STRUCTURAL CLAY TILE PRISMS

Many buildings have been constructed with structural clay tile masonry as either infills, bearing walls, or partitions. Little data are avai lable on the strength and constitutive properties of structural clay t ile. The limited historical data and the results of some recent testin g of structural clay tile prisms are presented. The current program te sted side constructed prisms, or prisms with horizontal cells. Testing was performed at various angles to the bed joint. For loading perpend icular to the bed joint, the prism strength can be conservatively esti mated as three-tenths of the unit tile strength. A linear relationship between the modulus of elasticity and the prism strength was also dev eloped. Prisms loaded perpendicular to the bed joint exhibited an abru pt brittle failure, with the strain at peak load averaging 0.0014.