Analysis of brick veneer walls on wood frame construction subjected to out-of-plane loads

Modern residential brick masonry veneer construction has been investigated by separate laboratory testing of corrugated sheet metal tie connections and full-scale solid brick veneer wall panels. Based on these experiments, detailed three-dimensional finite element (FE) models were developed, representing the full-scale brick veneer wall panel specimens, including nonlinear inelastic properties for the tie connections. Upon calibration, the FE wall panel models effectively captured the static and dynamic experimental brick veneer wall behaviors at different response levels (up to and including tie damage and even collapse). Some parametric studies were then carried out using the FE wall panel models to evaluate the effects of certain combinations of tie connections and layouts on the out-of-plane performance of brick veneer walls, subjected to static and dynamic loading.