Reliability assessment of vertically loaded masonry walls

Abstract

For the safety assessment of vertically loaded masonry walls, the Eurocode 6 considers a linear limit state function with only one basic parameter for the compressive strength of masonry. This assumption disregards the contribution of the uncertainty in other material parameters, like the elastic modulus, which is more important than the compressive strength in slender masonry walls. Furthermore, Eurocode 0 gives no clear advice on how to deal with the partial safety factors for non-linear problems in general.A reliability assessment has been carried out for the vertically loaded masonry walls, in order to clearly understand the contribution of the uncertainty of different material parameters on the evaluation of safety. The limit state function of the problem has been calculated using the transfer-matrix method. The full probabilistic approach has been applied using Monte Carlo simulations which helped to propose a new approach for the use of the partial safety factors in the non-linear analysis.