Page 52 - Design of Reinforced Masonry Structures

MASONRY UNITS: APPLICATIONS, TYPES, SIZES, AND CLASSIFICATION 2.5

FIGURE 2.3 Examples of solid building brick shapes used in the western United States. (Courtesy: BIA.)

rowlock, rowlock stretcher, soldier, and sailor; these designations characterize brick posi-
tions with respect to their wide or narrow faces or the ends visible in the face of a wall. Each
of the three faces of the brick (wide face, narrow face, and the end) can be either horizontal
or vertical in the plane of the wall, thus creating a total of six positions.
A vertical layer of masonry that is one unit thick is called wythe. In one-wythe wall
construction (i.e., a wall having a width equal to the width of the brick width), which is the
simplest to build, bricks are placed as stretchers—with their narrow face laid horizontally
in the plane of the wall. Other positions are obtained by turning a stretcher at 90° in the
plane of the wall in various ways. For example, a header is a unit placed with its end show-
ing in the plane of the wall, with its height (thickness) oriented vertically, the width oriented
horizontally, and length oriented perpendicular to the wall. A rowlock is a header turned 90°
in the plane of the wall. By virtue of their positioning, the headers and rowlocks effectively