Experimental and numerical investigations on behaviour of URM wall subjected to in-plane loading

Abstract

Predicting the strength of masonry panel is the primary concern to have enough resistance for severe an extreme seismic event. Hence, there are numerous design codes available for the estimation of the force capacity of masonry panel. What is yet unclear is that evaluation of the effectiveness of the design code to estimate the strength of wall and identification of critical role of parameters. Further investigation is required to assess the objectives and it is carried out by DIC analysis and numerical study. This paper proposes a new approach to determine the diagonal tensile strength of masonry panel by DIC analysis and offers the guideline to estimate diagonal tensile strength by numerical study. These findings contribute in more accurate ways of predicting the diagonal tensile strength and this assessment give better understanding of stress field of the masonry panel to engineers and researchers. Another outcome is that the estimated diagonal tensile strength plays a significant role of shear force capacity as proposed by Turnšek and Čačovič so the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that it offers to predict diagonal tensile, shear strength of masonry panel.