Seismic assessment of masonry structures is plagued by both inherent randomness and model uncertainty. The former is referred to as aleatory uncertainty, the latter as epistemic uncertainty because it depends on the knowledge level. Pioneering studies on reinforced concrete buildings have revealed a significant influence of modeling parameters on seismic vulnerability. However, confidence in me...

The highly composite and anisotropic nature of masonry, which is a result of the variation in the properties of the masonry constituents, makes it very difficult to find an accurate material model to predict its behaviour satisfactorily. Current research by the authors has focused more closely on the behaviour of laterally loaded masonry wall panels using model updating techniques supported by ...

Unreinforced Masonry infill walls (URM) are commonly used in the Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed structures as interiors and exteriors partition walls. Although they usually are not considered in the structural analysis and design, their influence on the seismic performance of the framed structures is significant. A common practice in the modern and old RC buildings is to remove the URM walls i...

the baluarte do cavaleiro is part of the stone masonry wall system existing in the city ofchaves of portugal and it is a construction dated from the xvii century. the baluarte docavaleiro is formed by three walls (north-east, ne; south-east, se; south-west, sw) andby two junction elements (designated here by cunhais). the se wall has suffered twocollapses recently. the main objective of this re...

In existing European recommendations the drift capacity of unreinforced masonry (URM) piers is estimated as a function of the failure mode, aspect ratio and/or axial load ratio. The empirical relationships are based on a set of results from quasi-static cyclic tests on single URM piers, which were tested simulating either double-fixed or cantilever boundary conditions. In modern URM structures,...

Masonry has low cohesive strength and is susceptible to the brittle failure, when subjected to induced tensile stresses. It fails due to lateral tensile stresses even when masonry prisms are tested in uni-axial static compression and the stress-strain curve remains almost linear up to failure. Although masonry normally resists compressive forces, under lateral in-plane cyclic loads some parts o...