FERREIRA, TIAGO M.1, COSTA, ALEXANDRE A.2, VICENTE, ROMEU3, VARUM, HUMBERTO4, ARÊDE, ANTÓNIO5, COSTA, ANÍBAL6

1 PhD Student, University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, tmferreira@ua.pt

2 Professor, School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto, Department of Civil Engineering, alc@isep.ipp.pt

3 Assistant Professor, University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, romvic@ua.pt

4 Associate Professor, University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, hvarum@ua.pt

5 Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Department of Civil Engineering, aarede@fe.up.pt

6 Full Professor, University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, agc@ua.pt

For the sake of simplicity, the out-of-plane seismic response of a wall may be obtained by means of a simple single-degree-of-freedom system while still providing good results. In fact, despite the assumptions associated with such a simple formulation, it is also true that the epistemic uncertainty inherent with the selection of appropriate input parameters in more complex models may render them truly ineffective. Bearing in mind this fact, the present paper focuses on the idealization of unreinforced stone masonry walls as single-degree-of-freedom systems for simulating their out-of-plane response, based on a trilinear model relating overturning moment vs. top displacement. The model, based on previous existing proposals, is confronted with a set of testing results obtained from a laboratory campaign carried out on six full scale free standing masonry walls. The results obtained from the application of the applied displacement-based methodology are thoroughly discussed and a comparison between the results obtained with this approach and displacement limits available in the literature is further presented.

Keywords: Stone masonry, out-of-plane behaviour, single degree of freedom, seismic response, trilinear model, displacement-based, displacement limits