Example 8: Masonry Wall

Example 8: Masonry Wall

This example shows systematically the creation of a masonry wall. This example will be most
effective if the user practices the illustrated skills as they are presented.
The structure is an example of one-story industrial building of reinforcement masonry walls; it
includes the design of bearing walls, shear walls and lintels. It is an example presented in “Amrhein
J. 1983, Reinforced Masonry Engineering Handbook, Fourth edition, Section 10”.

Example of masonry wall

Starting a new structure

If the Masonry Wall module is not already open, select Masonry in the Walls group in the Modules
tab within RAM Elements.

Masonry Wall module

To start a new structure click in the RE Button, select New and a default wall will appear. If an
existing model is open, the module will ask to save it.
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Example 8: Masonry Wall

Select New in the RE Button to start a new wall

Once the new file is open, proceed to the entering of data in the left window, following the order that
is shown below.

Entering units
Select the option Units system. This action will allow the drop-down menu to be enabled.

Select the English units system.

Entering geometry data

Then open the folder Geometry which will drop-drown the parameters needed to be entered.

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Enter the above wall geometry.

Note - All entered values will correspond to the default units. If other units of the same system are
required, type the value followed by the desired unit, as shown below.

Click in the cell to highlight the value.

Type the value followed by its unit and press Enter.

To enter the Openings, choose this option and a spreadsheet will appear to define one or several
openings in the wall at the same time.
Numbe Reference Corner X offset Y offset B:Width H: Height
r
1 Lower Left 28 0 16 20
2 Lower Left 104 0 3 7
3 Lower Left 76 0 16 20

Note – There are several tools available to manage the spreadsheets. In order to access them, the user
should do right click in a cell in the spreadsheet and all the options will pop up.

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Spreadsheet managing tools

The user can undo changes in the spreadsheet anytime selecting the Undo option.

Now, the masonry wall has three different openings.

Note: Those values that appear in red can be modified directly in the graphic.
The openings in this example have different shapes and are in the same level. In case the user needs
to enter equal openings in several levels, it is possible to use the tool located at the right side of
the openings spreadsheet.

Assign equal openings to several levels tool

Entering materials
To define the masonry wall material the user should open the Materials folder which will drop-down
four parameters to be entered.
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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

Enter the values shown in the figure above.

The first one, Material, defines the type and strength of the material. Choose CMU 1.5-60, which
stands for Concrete masonry unit with 1500 psi of specific compressive strength and grade 60
reinforcement. The second one is the Mortar type. The Mortar bed type can be complete or face
shell, and the grouting can be complete or partial. If the partial grouting is chosen, only those cells
that have reinforcement are going to be grouted.

Entering rigidity elements

Rigidity elements are commonly used to increase the stiffness of the masonry wall. The module
allows choosing between None, Columns or flanges. For this examples choose flanges.

Select Flanges and enter the values that are shown in the table below.
Numbe Distance Width Z Thicknes Position Z Position X
r s
1 0 55 9.63 Back Right
2 144 55 9.63 Back Left

The flanges are defined by the distance from the left side of the wall, the flanges width, and the
position along Z and X-direction. The flanges width is the flanges size along Z-direction, the user has
to enter the real width and the module will consider only the effective width (6 times the flange
thickness or the actual flange). The position along Z-direction defines if the flanges are at the back or

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

front side from the wall face. The position along X-direction defines if the flanges are aligned at the
left or right side from the point defined in Distance.

Entering loads
The module presents three different types of loads that may be applied to the wall, such as:
1. Vertical loads
2. In-plane lateral loads
3. Out-of-plane loads
4. Global forces
In this example, we have distributed dead and live vertical loads width eccentricity, in-plane lateral
loads, and out-of-plane wind loads.
Before entering the loads, it is necessary to create the required load conditions. To do that, press the
button Add/Edit in the Load management group to open the load condition manager, and create the
Live Load (LL) and Wind (W) and Wind out of plane (Wop) conditions as it is shown in the next
figure.

Add and edit load conditions button

Load conditions for the example

Initially, uncheck any load case in the Self weight parameter as the dead load will include the wall
weight.

None load condition was selected for self weight as the dead load will include the wall weight
Then, select Vertical loads/Distributed and a spreadsheet for the distributed loads will appear.

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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

Distributed loads can be entered directly by this window or by using the button assign distributed
load . For this example this button is going to be used.
Numbe Level Load Magnitud Eccentricity
r condition e
1 1 DL 1.008 6.5
2 1 LL 0.04 6.5

Click the button to enter a distributed load through a dialog window. Choose all levels with equal
loads, Eccentricity YES; and the load magnitude and eccentricity shown above for Dead Load (DL),
the dialog should look like below.

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

Distributed loads for DL load case

Once done for DL, press the button and enter the data for LL loads condition as follows.

Distributed load for LL load case

The vertical distributed loads will be depicted in the graphic window.

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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

Distributed dead load defined.

Now, select Lateral in-plane loads /Distributed and enter manually a distributed load for Wind of
0.041 kip/ft and click OK.

Lateral in-plane distributed load

Finally enter manually an out of plane load/pressure load of wind 0.012 kip/ft and click OK.

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

Lateral out-of-plane load

Generating load combinations

The program provides the different load combination files for each code (rag extension). The user
will be able to generate these combinations automatically or define them manually.

Click on the Generate button in the Load management group to open the Generate load combination
dialog.
Choose the file “ACI 530-05 ASD factored load combos.rag”. Then press Generate and the load
combinations will be generated.

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Select the desired combinations and press OK.

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

In the same way, service load combinations should be generated. Service load combinations are used
for deflections calculations. Open and generate the file “ACI 530-05 service load combos.rag”.
Finally, the Load conditions manager shows:

Generated load combinations

Entering design data

The first variable on the option Design data is Elements to design. This variable allows selecting
which elements of the complete masonry wall are going to be designed.

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Select all the elements to design and press OK.

Although the option Columns was checked, the module is not going to design columns because there
are no columns in the actual example. In the same way, the module identifies which elements the
model should be designed.
The module has the option to design bearing and/or shear walls as reinforced or unreinforced. If the
variable reinforced wall is unchecked the other variable disappears and the module only performs a
validation of the wall under the applied loads. Only one reinforcement layer will be used.
There are three criteria to design the walls: Spacing, Bar size and Reinforced area. Select Spacing.
The spacing values are given by the spacing between block cells. Spacing of 8, 16 and 24 in will be
considered.

Select Spacing as a Design criterion

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

Enter 16, 24 and 32 in as spacing.

Note: If Spacing is selected as Design criterion, the module will check every spacing value in a
descendent order with the complete range of bar sizes until it finds an optimum result. If Bar size is
selected as Design criterion, the module will check every selected bar size in an ascendant order with
different spacing values until it finds an optimum result. Finally, if Reinforced Area is selected the
module will find the optimum total reinforced area for each bar size, and it will select the minimum
as optimum.
For the lintel design, it is necessary to enter the lintel depth. In the case that the depth is the same for
all the lintels, there is an option to select equal lintel depth. Besides, it is required to enter the
longitudinal bar sizes.

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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

For the lintel design, enter the lintel depth and the list of longitudinal bar sizes.

Entering Configuration values

After entering all general data, the user should verify if all values by default in the Advanced options
are correct for the model and the design requirements. The Advanced options are locates in the
Options group.

Press the button shown in the figure.

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Verify that all values by default are correct for the model and the design requirements.
For this example, change the Mesh size (FEM Method) to manual and a new variable is going to
appear, set 24 in for the Custom mesh size and press OK.

Seeing results graphically

Once all the data is entered, the module is ready for the analysis and design. Press the Optimize
button in the Process group to design the wall with the optimum reinforcement.

Optimize de model design

In order to see the analysis results go to the FEM tab.

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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

Analysis results obtained by the Finite Element Method (FEM)

Note: When the user goes to the Diagram, FEM or Detailing tabs or press the buttons Optimize or
Report for the first time, the module analyzes the model, performs a reinforcement optimization and
verifies the reinforcement according to the code; therefore it can take some minutes depending on the
model size.
At the top side of the screen, the load Conditions for these results are available; if another load
condition is desired to see, dropdown the list and choose one:

Select the desired load condition.

At the right side several graph types can be chosen. The first four options show the wall
displacements; the next eight options show the stresses; and rest show the resultant forces in the wall,
remember that forces values are shown as force per length (e.g. kip/ft).
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Select the desired graph type

Note: Axial forces are given Fy; shear forces are given Fxy, out-of-plane moments are given by Mxx
and in-plane moments are obtained using the Fy forces respect the middle of the wall portion in
consideration.

There are several graphic options in the Graphic options group to customize the displayed view.

Detailing the wall

Once the analysis and design of the wall have been run, the design can be reviewed in the Detailing
tab.

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 Example 8: Masonry Wall

Detailing Tab
This screen displays a spreadsheet with the reinforcement data of the design. During the design, the
program makes an optimization of reinforcement, that is to say, it obtains the minimum steel area to
satisfy the requirements according to the design parameters the user has entered in the data screen.
Remember that the user may change, edit or delete reinforcement at any moment according its
requirements. After a change, press the button in the quick access menu to verify quickly the
influence of these changes. The traffic light, located in the status bar , is used to check the
results of any changes.
This spreadsheet has four tabs: Wall Vertical reinforcement, Wall Horizontal reinforcement, Lintel
reinforcement and column reinforcement. However the tab for columns is not shown because there is
no column in this model.
Now suppose the user needs spacing values of 72 inches with bar #5 for all vertical reinforcement.
For this, initially delete all the vertical reinforcement using the button Clear located in the
spreadsheet tools.

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Example 8: Masonry Wall

Click on the button Continuous vertical in the Generate reinforcement group to enter a
continuous reinforcement. Select all the strips, bar #5 and 72 inches of spacing, and the click OK.
A new vertical reinforcement was assigned to the whole wall and the traffic light is disabled due to
these changes. Now the user can verify if those changes fulfill the requirements and the limitations of
the code by clicking on the button . In the same way, it is possible to modify any reinforcement in
the different tabs; just make any change and click on verify button. If the traffic light is not green, this
means that some of the changes were not correct according to the code.
Note - If the user wants to return to the initial results of automatic design, the Optimize design
button can be used from the quick access toolbar.

Seeing the report

The entire data and result sets can be seen in the report:

Press the button shown in the figure.

The report is divided in 5 parts: general information, bearing wall design, shear wall design, column
design and lintel design.
 General information. This part of the report shows the wall geometry, material, openings,
rigidity elements, load conditions, and loads.

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General information.
 Bearing wall Design. This second part of the report shows the design results of the walls
considered as bearing walls. It is subdivided in:
 Bearing wall status and plot
 Segment geometry
 Vertical reinforcement
 Results
 Shear wall Design. It shows the design results of the walls considered as shear walls. It is
subdivided in:
 Shear wall status and plot
 Segment geometry
 Vertical and horizontal reinforcement
 Results
 Column Design. It shows the design results of the columns. It is subdivided in:
 Column status and plot
 Column geometry
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 Reinforcement
 Results
 Lintel Design. It shows the design results of the lintels. It is subdivided in:
 Lintel status and plot
 Lintel geometry
 Reinforcement
 Results

Design Status
The report presents a general status for bearing walls, shear walls, columns and lintels. There are
three possible options:
 “OK” when all the elements fulfill the requirements and limitations of the code
 “Warnings.” when some elements fail one or more limitations of the code.
 “N.G.” when some elements fail one or more requirements of the code.

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