Author

H. J. VEKEMANS University of Technology Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Abstract

A current research project in The Netherlands deals with masonry, and is concentrated on the structural design of buildings. Part of the project is a comparison of different design-rules in NEN 6790, BS 5628, DIN 1053, NBN B 24-301, SIA 177 and EC6.
An architectural design, a seven storey apartment building with loadbearing walls 265 mm thick, has been used as an example. The calculation of the structure of the building is limited to the calculation of two shear walls and three vertically loaded walls, according to the rules in the six codes. The results of the calculations provide more insight into differences between the codes and the masonry strengths needed in the different countries for the same building. Loads were applied according to the codes of the countries, except for the Eurocode, where the Dutch NEN 6702 was used.