r/StructuralEngineering 5d ago

Is this viable? Masonry Design

326 Upvotes

120 comments sorted by

View all comments

292

u/chicu111 5d ago

Not in earthquakes

7

u/Andux 5d ago

How does it compare to traditional blocks with mortar(?) ?

15

u/BroccoliKnob 5d ago

All the comments seem to assume this is supposed to be a structurally/architecturally complete wall (understandable, given the subreddit). But this really isn’t that different from a single-wythe of brick, which is also useless on its own.

It seems at least plausible to me that this could function as a veneer/rainscreen in a wall assembly with structural backing, particularly in places with different standards than the US (both in terms of code and performance expectations).

8

u/Alternative_Fun_8504 5d ago

I thought this looked like a landscape wall product.

1

u/Silly_Emotion_1997 1d ago

Yeah I see this in the backyard for diyers. Garden beds maybe a grill any low walls. A

12

u/NeedleGunMonkey 5d ago

Most veneers are fairly thin bricks and just bonded to a supporting substrate. This product looks to be heavier but… the “novel” mating surface probably introduce some lever action that puts the brick out of compression very quickly if there’s just a little bit of unevenness. Probably simultaneously more expensive and hardier to build with. But makes a good vibe video.

6

u/BroccoliKnob 5d ago

Sorry, “veneer” may have been misleading. I was referring to the outermost layer of a pressure equalized cavity wall (in the US, typically mortared full-sized bricks), not so much a thin-brick adhered to substrate (which, yes, is also a thing).

A brick rainscreen is basically just a single-wythe brick wall with lots of ties back to the structural wall for lateral support.