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Civil-Comp Proceedings
ISSN 1759-3433
CCP: 106
PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWELFTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON COMPUTATIONAL STRUCTURES TECHNOLOGY
Edited by:
Paper 104

Thermal and Mechanical Performance of an Optimized Lightweight Masonry Block

L.C. Sousa1, C.F. Castro1, C.C. Antonio1, H. Sousa2 and R. Sousa2

1IDMEC POLO-FEUP, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Portugal
2Departamento de Engenharia Civil, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade de Porto, Portugal

Full Bibliographic Reference for this paper
L.C. Sousa, C.F. Castro, C.C. Antonio, H. Sousa, R. Sousa, "Thermal and Mechanical Performance of an Optimized Lightweight Masonry Block", in , (Editors), "Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on Computational Structures Technology", Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 104, 2014. doi:10.4203/ccp.106.104
Keywords: lightweight concrete units, blocks systems, thermal performance, mechanical performance, experimental characterization..

Summary
New building materials and modern masonry technologies are emerging in the building marketplace. Masonry, a common component with low maintenance and good durability is widely used around the world and still remains a main building material especially in developing countries. On the other hand the improvement of the thermal comfort and energy saving provides a good contribution for the development of sustainable building. The development of a new block needs to take into account the following aspects: material, overall density, thermal and mechanical requirements, geometry, topology and laying requirements, production and technological constraints. This paper describes the development of a new masonry system, based on light lightweight concrete units, intended for construction of large single leaf external walls with high insulating capacity. A detailed numerical analysis and optimization has been performed from the thermal point of view. This simulation work was followed by a set of experimental tests in order to characterize the mechanical behaviour of single units and masonry specimens. The average compressive strength of the masonry obtained in compression is within the expected values required by the European Standards.

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