Inelastic Seismic Analysis of Reinforced Masonry Buildings

In this paper a simple method is presented to estimate the overall behaviour of reinforced masonry (r.m.) buildings under static lateral loads simulating earthquake effects. To describe the shear behaviour of individual walls, a macroscopic approach based on the Modified Compression Field Theory is adopted, while the common simple flexure theory is assumed for the description of flexural behaviour. To test the adequacy of the proposed shear wall model, firstly a numerical investigation is carried out, by assuming as test walls some r.m. panels for which the experimental results are available. This model is then incorporated in a general nonlinear procedure to simulate the behaviour of r.m. buildings of few storeys for which the response mechanism is substantially governed by shear. Finally, the procedure is applied to assess the ultimate horizontal load of a simple four-storey building.