BACKGROUND The presence of PCB in caulking (sealant) material found in masonry buildings has been well-documented in several countries. A recent investigation of 24 buildings in the greater Boston area found that 8 buildings had high PCB levels in caulking materials used around window frames and in joints between masonry blocks. Workers removing caulking material have been shown to have elevate...

Masonry structures are popularly built in many parts of India so it is necessary to provide suitable guidelines and safety rules for proper construction masonry buildings.Confined (CM) appearing as anaccepted building technique earthquake-prone countries including India. falls under four earthquake zones namely, zone II, III, IV V. CMconstruction type has been known perform well numerousmajorse...

The mechanical response of stone masonry depends on the properties of the components and also on the typology created by the stone units and the mortar joints. While the influence of the component strength on masonry is relatively well studied, mainly due to the difficulty of varying the masonry typology systematically, few research studies have been devoted to its influence on masonry properti...

When testing multi-storey structures, most testing facilities require the testing of a reduced-scale model. A literature review on tests of scaled masonry structural components revealed that scaling of masonry was rather challenging and often significant differences in stiffness, strength and failure mechanisms between the different sized masonry were reported. This paper addresses the scaling ...

Masonry structures constitute a large component of the built environment and often form part of the national heritage. The development of reliable techniques for the numerical simulation of the behaviour of such systems is of considerable importance. We assume that masonry structures may be modelled as an aggregration of bodies in non-penetrative frictional contact. The motion of an individual ...

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...

This work presents an analysis of different proposals of rehabilitation of a masonry building, built around the beginning of the XX century for public schools, in the highest seismic risk zone of Argentine; and which was closed down after Mendoza`s Earthquake in 1985. The building has masonry walls of artisanal ceramic bricks and wood-framed roof but it does not have lateral ties. Currently, it...

This paper describes an experimental program that deals with retrofitting of infill un-reinforced masonry walls (URM) with Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP). The primary objective of this research is to develop a retrofit strategy that while economical will minimize the influence of the retrofit on the overall performance of structural frames in predominant seismic regions. Allowing some damage to...

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 (URM) walls comprise vertical piers and horizontal spandrels, which together form the lateral load resisting system. Whereas past research yielded significant advances in the understanding of the force–deformation characteristics of masonry piers, knowledge of the behaviour of masonry spandrels is lacking. This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of the seismic ...