URM (Unreinforced Masonry) historic buildings can be generally arranged into three categories: adobe, brick and stone masonry. However, a common feature of URM structures is typically the low mechanical properties of the masonry material, especially in terms of shear strength. URM buildings are not amenable to seismic analysis, and the relatively low strength of stone and brickwork masonry ofte...

Strengthening of un-reinforced masonry (URM) structures to improve its seismic performance is not only well recognized among the research community but also getting attention of practicing engineers around the globe. The estimation of lateral capacity and performance of masonry becomes complex because of heterogeneous nature of its constituent materials and other associated problems. Heterogene...

The seismic assessment of existing masonry buildings is based on the prediction of their nonlinear response under lateral loading. This requires a reliable estimation of the force and displacement demand. For this purpose, modelling strategies using structural component elements are widely applied both in research and in engineering practice, since they can provide a satisfactory description of...

Code design of Unreinforced Masonry (URM) buildings is based on elastic analysis, which requires as input parameter the effective stiffness of URM walls. Current approaches estimate the effective stiffness as fixed ratio of the gross sectional stiffness but comparisons with experimental results have shown that this does not yield satisfactory predictions. In this paper, a recently developed ana...

Given the sophisticated nature of the blast phenomenon in relation to structures, it is of significance to accurately investigate the structure behavior under blast loads. Due to its rapid and transient nature, blast loading is one of the most important dynamic loadings on the structures. Since masonry materials are widely used as the partition and bearing walls in the existing and newly-built ...

This paper describes finite element studies of one-way out-of-plane failure of unreinforced masonry walls under static loading. The studies are early steps in the development of a method that will be applicable to two-way out-of-plane failure of walls under dynamic loading. The approach is based on a discrete-crack approach, where mortar beds are modelled using contact-interface elements, and m...

A performance-based seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings requires the use of reliable models, able to predict their nonlinear force-displacement response including their displacement capacity. Among the possible methodologies, at different levels of complexity, macro-modelling using structural component elements has proved to be an approach that can provide satisfactory ac...

Unreinforced masonry (URM) walls strengthened with composites were tested to failure at a decommissioned building in St. Louis, Missouri. The walls were subjected to out-of-plane loading. Previous work on URM as well as reinforced masonry walls strengthened with FRP laminates has shown remarkable increases in capacity and ductility. However, most of this research work has been conducted in the ...