ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to obtain further knowledge concerning to the out-of-plane response of masonry infill walls panels. Earthquakes demonstrated a significant contribution of the masonry infill walls in the structural response of the existent reinforced concrete buildings. From the surveys on damaged and collapsed reinforced concrete buildings in the L'Aquila and Lorca earthquakes a large number of buildings that suffered severe damage or collapse had their poor performance associated with the influence of the infill panels. The out-of-plane test consisted of the application of a uniformly distributed surface load through a system composed of seven nylon airbags, reacting against a self-equilibrated steel structure. The chapter describes the experimental campaign, material characterization and the test setup and discusses the manuscript as well as the main experimental tests results. The failure modes observed in each of the tests reveal a different out-of-plane behaviour of the infill masonry walls with and without previous in-plane damage.
