ABSTRACT
Research has shown that lateral boundary conditions can have a large influence on the force capacity of two-way spanning unreinforced masonry (URM) walls subjected to out-of-plane (OOP) loading. Differently than laterally free one-way spanning walls, they show a higher force capacity, which however is underestimated by current analytical formulations. By means of nonlinear finite element analyses adopting a detailed 3D brick-to-brick model, the influence of lateral boundary conditions on two-way out-of-plane failure of a single wythe masonry wall is studied. Results indicate that the cracking pattern varies as lateral boundaries become stiffer, accordingly the force capacity increases. Numerical results are compared with analytical formulation proposed in the Australian Standard AS3700. These preliminary results will serve to evaluate how to consider the lateral boundary conditions, provided by the wall-to-wall connection, for two-way spanning walls in existing buildings.
