Masonry Magazine January 1968 Page. 45
International Conference Report
Austin, Texas
The International Conference on Masonry Structural Systems held November 30 through December 2 at the Terrace Motor Hotel Convention Center here attracted more than 550 distinguished architects, engineers, academicians and industrialists from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Americas.
Purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for the international exchange of information relating to masonry structural systems. Conference leaders are saying the United States is lagging far behind European countries in masonry technology. Speaker emphasis was placed on closing this knowledge gap, and 70 authors presented 60 papers on aesthetic creativity, material science, structural performance, design methodology, case studies and construction techniques.
The main theme of the conference was that new structural uses for masonry are not only possible but economically feasible and aesthetically exciting.
In 1958, the Swiss built an 18-story load-bearing building with 15-inch brick walls. The United States has yet to match this performance, although in 1966 a 17-story building with 11-inch reinforced brick masonry walls was built for earthquake resistance in Denver, Colorado.
The prefabrication of pre-stressed brick panels is another area in which the Europeans are ahead of American builders. In 1964, two French manufacturers supplied prefabricated brick panels for 43,000 dwelling units. Some of these panels are eight feet high and 20 feet long. They are shipped from the plants with the windows and doors in place and with the walls already plastered. Their primary application is in high-rise, load-bearing, frameless buildings.
India and Japan were using reinforced brick masonry to withstand earthquakes as early as the 1920's. Atomic blast resistant structures of reinforced brick were tested at over-pressures of more than 720 pounds per square foot by the Atomic Energy Commission in 1957.
Highway engineers are only now discovering that reinforced brick masonry provides retaining walls that are structurally safe, beautiful, and economical.
Spectacular structural uses of unit masonry are relatively new, however, and perhaps the spectacular is necessary to the acceptance of innovation, said Clayford T. Grimm, Conference Secretary.
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