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...

nowadays, distinctive methods are used in evaluation of the criteria in order to making decision. among them the analytic hierarchy process (ahp) is one of the most efficient. due to the seismicity of the vast majority part of the country and also the existence of the large number of the unreinforced masonry buildings, the application of the ahp method in order to reach to the best alternative ...

pullback test has no scrupulous theoretical establishment. it is based on the hypothesis that the response ofthe structure can be related to the response of an equivalent single degree-of-freedom (sdof) system. this implies thatthe response is controlled by a single mode. in fact, the steel frame of each safe room, which is introduced within theunreinforced masonry buildings for protecting the ...

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...

The test data on the size effect in the failure of masonry walls and some parts of the discussion of size effect are valuable. However, the theoretical description of the size effect is in my opinion invalid. The use of the "multifractal scaling law" proposed earlier by the senior author is unjustified, for the same reasons as it is for concrete structures. The reasons are explained in detail i...

Some specimens reproducing three leaf stone masonry walls frequently used in Italy, have been built at DIS, Milan, using two different types of stones and tested under compression and shear, up to failure. Subsequently the damaged wallettes were repaired by injection and the effectiveness of the injection was controlled by several NDT (non destructive techniques)

this study evaluates two different types of techniques for concrete hollow-block sections reinforced with traditional steel rebars and wire meshes, and compares their structural behaviour to that of an ordinary reinforced concrete beam section. the comparisons are based on the responses both before and after they were repaired with glass fibre reinforced polymers (gfrp). the specimens were subj...