ABSTRACT
The Eurocode 6 (EC6) standard provides explicit equations for calculating the shear resistance of unreinforced masonry walls subjected to shear loading. It appears that some practicing engineers find the EC6 equations for shear design of unreinforced masonry confusing because the shear resistance appears to be a function of the horizontal load, which is counterintuitive. The use of interaction diagrams makes it possible to also qualitatively assess how well the EC6 model matches with reality. An attempt to merge the different mechanisms can be found in German national annex of EC6, which uses stress dependent upper limit for the simple shear EC6 model where the stress appears under a square root. With respect to EC6 it should also be noted that failure of masonry in bending is not mentioned so directly as in other literature on design of masonry.
