Compressive strength of steel columns incased in brick walls 1

[Italo01]

Hello, i just design a steel building with non-structural masonry( The walls are located inside the column flanges). Yesterday i found an article called "compressive strength of steel columns incased in brick walls" by Albert Harris in which tests where made with bare columns and columns incased in structural masonry walls and did show that the column almost reaches yield stress.
I did not consider any masonry restraint on the column and do not intend to use it but would like to know what you think of this situation. Does the masonry increases the column strength?

Thanks.

 

[phamENG]

It would all be in how it's detailed. Generally speaking, I detail non-structural masonry to intentionally remain non-structural. So for most of my designs, no - the masonry would provide no meaningful increase in column strength. I have no idea what kind of detailing was used in the study they based that article on, so I can't speak to that.

 

[WARose]

Like pham said: the devil is in the details. If you want some kind of code guidance....I think AISC's LRFD (2nd ed) manual was the last time I saw this addressed in code. That (however) was for a concrete encased column. So there will definitely be a judgement call here.

 

[Italo01]

Thank foi PhamEng nas Warose.

 

[GeorgeTheCivilEngineer]

Masonry built tight between the flanges of a UC column ... yes, that would restrain the column in the weak axis and I'd be comfortable using it. But from memory I've only used it to simplify calculations than really relying on that mechanism.

Other details like frame cramps off the flange as ties to a brickwork cladding... no, assume no additional restraint from the masonry.

 

[RPMG]

In the future, contractors and engineers won't know that the brick is load bearing if it's around a steel column, and demo of decorative masonry shouldn't lead to a structural deficiency. Also, when masonry cracks, no one calls a structural engineer to find out if the floor is going to fall down. If this is hypothetical, then yes, but I wouldn't utilize it in a practice.