ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on rural masonry buildings of the Italian provinces of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio Emilia. Due to the high level of damages of the buildings under investigation, intended to be demolished, it was possible to perform destructive tests in order to characterize the masonry in terms of shear behavior. In-situ shear-compression tests and diagonal compression tests on full-scale masonry panels were performed, trying to select samples with similar characteristics, when possible. The shear-compression test consists in applying a growing shear load on a masonry panel subjected to a constant assigned vertical compression. The experimental campaign involved eight masonry buildings severely damaged by the 2012 Emilia earthquake and consisted in the execution of non-destructive, slightly-destructive and full-scale destructive tests. Masonry walls to be subjected to the destructive tests were properly selected by taking into account the masonry typology, the compressive stress applied to them and the pre-existing state of damage.
