Deformation capacity and strength of brick masonry spandrels

In unreinforced masonry (URM) structures vertical walls are connected by horizontal spandrel elements. Spandrels have been subjected to extensive damage during earthquakes and are often the first elements within a URM building to crack or fail. If URM buildings develop mechanisms comprising significant damage to the spandrels, the prediction of the building’s seismic behaviour requires knowledge on the nonlinear force-deformation relationship of the spandrels. While such relationships are available for walls, they are currently lacking for spandrels. This presentation presents the results of an ongoing project at EPFL (Switzerland) which aims at the definition of force-deformation relationships for brick masonry spandrels. It introduces a piecewise linear approximation of the force-deformation relationships and provides first empirical and mechanical models for corner drifts and strength values.