Author
D R W MARTENS
Department of Architecture, Building and Planning, Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract
The load-bearing capacity of unreinforced masonry walls subjected to vertical in-plane loading depends primarily on the eccentricity of the load. In most masonry design codes the bending moment transmitted to the wall may be determined by a frame analysis assuming fully rigid wall?floor joints.
In reality, the wall-floor joint will not be fully rigid due to cracking at the joint and the bending moment transmitted to the wall Meff will be smaller than the theoretical value Mcal. The ratio Meff/Mcal is called the joint fixity factor ?.
In annex C of Eurocode 6 a simplified method for the calculation of the joint fixity factor is adopted. Other approximations are given by Hendry, Sahlin, Lewicki and the Swiss masonry code, which all yield different results. In this paper the validity of the EC6-method for single-storey masonry buildings and different wall-floor combinations is assessed. Moreover, a proposal for a classification of the wall-floor joints and a new concept for a joint fixity test are presented.