ABOUT MASONRY WALLS DUCTILITY CAPACITIES CALCULATION

Abstract

The development of capacity design principles in the 1970's (Park and Paulay, 1976) was an expression of the realization that the distribution of strength through a building was more important than the absolute value of the design base shear. It was recognized that a frame building would perform better under seismic action if it could be assured that plastic hinges would occur in beams rather than in columns (weak beam/strong column mechanism), and if the shear strength of members exceeded the shear corresponding to flexural strength. This can be identified as the true start to performance based seismic design, where the overall performance of the building is controlled as a function of the design process. One of the civil engineers goals is how to calculate more simplified the ductility capacities for the structural elements and in this paper just the problem of masonry walls was treated.[2], [4]