The present paper makes a critical review of some methods and models, now available in the technical literature and commonly used in the analysis of masonry vaults up to their collapse, by highlighting advantages and drawbacks of each approach. All methods adopted to describe the mechanical behavior of masonry structures, in order to be reliable, must take into account the distinctive aspects o...

This article contains information related to a recent study "Performance-based interpretation of in-plane cyclic tests on RC frames with strong masonry infills" (Morandi et al., 2017 [1]). Motivated by the necessity to improve the knowledge of the in-plane seismic response of rigid strong masonry infills, a wide experimental campaign based on in-plane cyclic tests on full-scale RC infilled fram...

High, sustained loads in masonry cause time-dependent deformations, which can lead to failure of the construction. This phenomenon mostly occurs in high constructions, such as historical towers, where the dead load imposes significant stresses on the base of the tower [4]. As knowledge and experimental data are lacking to describe this time-dependent behavior in historical masonry, a research p...

A common decay scenario in old and new buildings was simulated: the effects on masonry structures of salt efflorescence or subefflorescence produced by the rise of saline solution. Eight different types of masonry wall each made up of a combination of different construction materials (brick, calcarenite and four types of mortar were combined as follows: pure lime mortar, mortar + air entraining...

Water content affects mortar properties and the quality of the resultant masonry, however, it is often subjectively determined by the mason by assessing workability. This lack of explicit methodology and data, can lead to lack of mortar consistency and field performance, adversely affecting full uptake of lime mortars into mainstream technology. The aim of this research is to assist develop con...

Work in masonry is divided in different tasks and performed by sub-contractors. Sub-contractors specialize in a given skill to accomplish a specific construction task and usually work with crews. Due to this specialization, multiple crews with different skills are present on the jobsite at any one time and the sub-contractor is responsible of configuring crews to produce good quality work by me...

ABSTRACT This paper presents a non-linear finite element material model for the analysis of the mechanical behavior of multi-leaf masonry, which is quite frequently used in ancient stone masonry buildings. A damage model, previously developed by some of the authors for brittle materials (namely, concrete) was adapted to fit the experimental stress−strain behavior of stone masonry. To this end, ...

Masonry infill has been widely used as building material due to its cost effectiveness and availability.  The failure of these masonry infill walls during the past earthquakes have underscored the importance of ensuring the safety of the infill walls when it is subjected to lateral loads. In-plane and out of plane failures have been observed in many reinforced concrete framed building with maso...

The equivalent periodic eigenstrain method is used to evaluate the effective elastic stiffness of periodic masonry structure. An Eshelby tensor, for a unit cell of the periodic masonry structure, is derived analytically, and is combined with a strain energy approach to formulate the effective stiffness of the masonry. The new homogenization scheme is simple, one step, and closed form. The model...