Dynamic response behaviour of unreinforced masonry walls subject to out of plane loading

Unreinforced masonry (URM) walls have been traditionally considered to possess very limited ductility and hence designed to behave in a linear elastic manner when subject to out of plane loading. This notion contradicts recent findings which have found significant displacement capacity of URM walls beyond their linear elastic limit. This paper presents an overview of recent research progress on URM walls subject to out of plane two-way bending. Parametric studies based on non-linear time history analyses have been undertaken to identify the displacement demand behaviour of URM walls. Hysteretic models used in the studies were representative of hysteretic behaviour observed from cyclic testings. Analytical simulations of URM walls using the representative hysteretic models have then been evaluated by comparison with the dynamic response of the walls recorded from shaking-table testings. The materials presented in this paper represent an important part of the research outcomes from a joint ARC Discovery research project undertaken between the University of Adelaide and the University of Melbourne.