Displacement-based seismic analysis for out-of-plane bending of unreinforced masonry walls

This paper addresses the problem of assessing the seismic resistance of brick masonry walls subject to out-of-plane bending. A simplified linearized displacement-based procedure is presented along with recommendations for the selection of an appropriate substitute structure in order to provide the most representative analytical results. A trilinear relationship is used to characterize the real nonlinear force-displacement relationship for unreinforced brick masonry walls. Predictions of the magnitude of support motion required to cause flexural failure of masonry walls using the linearized displacement-based procedure and quasi-static analysis procedures are compared with the results of experiments and nonlinear time-history analyses. The displacement-based procedure is shown to give significantly better predictions than the force-based method. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.