Hervé Degée¹, Florian Frederickx², and Bram Vandoren³
Construction Engineering Research Group, Hasselt University
Agoralaan, Building H, 3590, Diepenbeek (Belgium)
e-mail: 1 herve.degee@uhasselt.be, 2 florian.frederickx@uhaselt.be, 3 bram.vandoren@uhasselt.be

Keywords: unreinforced masonry, reinforced concrete, coupling, in-plane stability.

Abstract. This contribution deals with numerical investigations of hybrid unreinforced masonry- reinforced concrete wall structures (i.e. RC and URM walls coupled by reinforced concrete beams or slabs) used as horizontal stabilization systems. Although the combination of these materials is used as a bracing system in several countries, oversimplified design assumptions are often applied due to a lack of knowledge of the structural behavior of such systems. Therefore, this paper aims at improving this knowledge. The numerical campaign resorts to a pushover analysis: the focus is put on the lateral bracing resistance under statically increased horizontal loads. A finite element model developed, calibrated and validated in previous publications is used to perform a parametric analysis on global geometric parameters. A first set op case-studies consists in varying some global geometric parameters (length of the walls, distance between URM and RC wall, storey height, number of storeys) while a second set of case-studies deeper investigates the influence of the length of both walls. This constitutes a first step towards an optimization of the performances of such hybrid unreinforced masonry-reinforced concrete wall structures.