ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the out-of-plane behaviour of two new systems for infill walls, made of clay masonry units. In the first system the enclosure wall is divided into smaller wallettes by means of soft vertical joints, whereas in the second system horizontal and vertical reinforcement is provided. In the latter system, a special brick unit, capable of accommodating steel reinforcement and electrical and plumbing installations, was designed. The systems result in high peak forces and substantial deformation capability, particularly in the reinforced masonry typology. Masonry is considered as an equivalent composite material with nonlinear behaviour; the con-stitutive model is based on a smeared crack approach and simulates the main failure modes of masonry under tension, compression and shear. The comparison between the numerical and experimental data demonstrates that the numerical model successfully estimates the global response of the infilled frames under out-of-plane repeated tests.
