Seismic design of tension wall-diaphragm anchorage for historical unreinforced masonry buildings

Abstract

The absence of appropriate structural connections is known to be one of the main factors contributing to the activation of out-of-plane mechanisms of masonry walls that can compromise the entire stability of a building. The high vulnerability of historical unreinforced masonry buildings to these types of mechanisms imposes the necessity to develop engineered strengthening solutions capable of ensuring positivewall-diaphragm anchorage to work in tension.A design methodology was developed covering aspects related to the estimation of the seismic demand and the design of a retrofit solution studied experimentally. The procedure proposed relies on the assessment of the resistant capacity associated with several possible failure modes and the estimation of the seismic demand considering the existing recommendations found on Eurocode 8 (CEN/TC 250 2010), ASCE/SEI 41-13, and NZSEE (2006).