Pushover analysis of soft brick unreinforced masonry walls using analytical and numerical approaches

Abstract

The seismic behaviour of low strength unreinforced masonry (URM) structures comprising soft bricks is still not clearly understood. This challenge can be addressed by numerically modelling soft brick URM wall panels using the simplified micro modelling technique. Alternatively, an analytical approach can be adopted to derive the load-deformation curves for soft brick URM walls. This paper presents results from pushover analysis on URM walls and compares the results obtained from the analytical and numerical techniques. The pushover curves and failure modes obtained from the finite element analyses are in good agreement with the results obtained using the analytical approach. It is concluded that the analytical and numerical techniques account for the various possible damage mechanisms associated with soft brick masonry and can be adopted for large scale analyses of soft brick URM structures.