Page 53 - Design of Reinforced Masonry Structures

2.6 CHAPTER TWO

FIGURE 2.4 Brick positions in wall construction. (Courtesy: BIA.)

tie two or more wythes of a wall. A soldier is a stretcher turned 90° in the vertical plane of
the wall so the length is oriented vertically (narrow face is vertical). A rowlock stretcher
(also called shiner) is a stretcher laid on its narrow face so that its wider face is in the plane
of the wall and its ends perpendicular to the plane of the wall (same as a rowlock turned 90°
in a horizontal plane). A sailor is a soldier turned 90° in a horizontal plane [2.11].
While a stretcher is the most common position of a brick in a wall, other forms are

invariably used when walls are two or three wythes thick. Headers are used to bond wythes
in multiwythe walls to form a structural unit. Some of the brick positions are used specifi-
cally to create pleasing visual effects. For example, soldier courses are placed for visual
emphasis in such locations as tops of walls or window lintels. Rowlock courses are fre-
quently used as sloping sills under windows and as caps for garden walls.

2.4.2 Hollow Brick Configurations

Figure 2.5 shows configurations of hollow bricks. They may have only cores (i.e., small circu-
lar or rectangular voids) or both cores and cells. Cells are similar to cores except that a cell is
larger in cross-section than a core. Attention should be paid to the definitions of various parts