Seismic Behavior of Horizontal‐Hole Interlocking Concrete Block‐Confined Masonry Walls with Openings

To study the seismic behavior of horizontal‐hole interlocking concrete block‐confined masonry walls with openings, in‐plane cyclic loading tests were conducted on specimens with no openings, a window opening, and a door opening. The results indicated that the specimens with no openings and window openings exhibited typical diagonal shear failures of the entire wall. However, the structure and bearing mode were changed by including a door opening. The door‐opening specimen could no longer be analyzed as an entire confined masonry wall owing to its lateral resistance and failure modes. The tie columns on both sides and the adjacent masonry formed wall columns, and the lintel beam and masonry above the opening formed a wall beam. Under a horizontal force, localized shear failure occurred in the wall beam, which resembled the shear failure of the coupling beam of double‐limb shear walls and was an expected failure mode. Finally, this study proposes a new method for analyzing the lateral resistance of confined masonry walls with openings, called the force transmission path method, with a maximum calculated difference of 8.51%. This reflected the lateral resistance contribution of the reinforced concrete lintel beams.