Experimental and Numerical Assessment of Lateral In-Plane Response of an Unreinforced Masonry Wall with Arch-Type Openings
摘要
Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings are highly vulnerable to earthquakes due to their architectural irregularities, high mass and stiffness, and low tensile strength. Among the architectural irregularities, the presence of openings for doors or windows has been shown to affect the seismic performance of buildings negatively. Therefore, understanding the lateral in-plane response of walls with openings is essential. This paper presents the results of a full-scale test on a URM wall with arch-type openings subjected to a combination of a constant axial load and pseudo-static cyclic in-plane lateral loads. The wall exhibited a flexure-dominated hysteretic response, characterized by narrow loops and low energy dissipation, associated with the rocking of the piers, which remained almost undamaged, showing cracking only at the base and near the mid-span of the arch. Additionally, a 2D macro-modeling approach based on finite element analysis (FEA) was employed to simulate the wall’s response through a nonlinear pushover analysis. The model successfully captured both the lateral load-displacement behavior and the observed damage pattern.