Performance of Brick Masonry in

Earthquake
Seminar Presentation for PhD Coursework

By Ayushi Nayak, Assistant Professor, Civil

Engineering Department
Turkey and Syria, February 2023
Source; https://commercial.allianz.com/
 What is Masonry?
• Masonry is the construction of structures
using individual units of materials such as
bricks, stones, or concrete blocks, bound
together with mortar.

• In developing countries masonry is one of the

most affordable and adaptable building
material
As per census 2011, 84 million houses are made up of – Burnt bricks
and 64 million houses of unburnt/ clay bricks
 As per 2001 Census out of 191.96 million total households,
106.57 million (56 per cent) households occupied houses with
walls made of burnt brick, stone, concrete, whereas 61.79
million (32 per cent) households occupied houses with walls
made of mud, un-burnt bricks, etc.
Portland, Oregon , USA

Based on an assessment
completed in 2016, Portland
Permitting & Development
estimates Portland has over
1,600 URM buildings

Source: Portland.gov
 Masonry is good in compression
• Efficient under gravity load
• Owing good compressive strength it was used in medieval towers and arch
bridges.

Law college, Chennai Chunnambar Bridge,

(1851) Pondicherry (1864)
bhitargaon temple,
UP ( 6th Century)
Torrazo Tower,
Cremona, Itlay

Great Wall of
China( 3rd Century)
Great Wall of
China( 3rd Century)

Qutub Minar ( 1192)

Indian railways has 130 thousands masonry arch bridges out of which 100 thousands Indian railways has
130 thousands masonry arch bridges out of which 100 thousands are made in medieval period.

Source : Indian railway Institute of Civil Engineering, Pune , March 2009

 Masonry in Tension
• Tensile stresses induced by a combination of
gravity and lateral forces.
• Unreinforced Maonary buildings (URM)are
vulnerable to normal and moderate
earthquake, due to lack of ductility
 Source:
Design of
Masonry
structure, IIT
M

Massive Mud brick wall of

Ctesiphon palace, Iraq

1.82 m Thick wall at basement,

Monadnock Building, Chicago,
1891,
 Behaviour of Masonry During Earthquakes
and Modes of Failure
• Masonry exhibits brittle behavior under seismic loads:
• - Weak in tension, leading to cracking and collapse.

Modes of Failure:

• - Out-of-Plane Failure
• - In-Plane Shear Failure
• - Corner/ Junction Separation
• Failure of Masonry between Openings
• Separation of Roof
• Buckling of Wythes
Marnetto et al., 2014
Out of Plane Failure

Kashmir
Earthquake,
2005

L’Aquila
earthquake, 2009
 In Plane Failure

Kashmir Earthquake 2005

(Cakir et al. 2015).

 Corner/ Junction Separation

Nepal Earthquake, 2015

Bhuj Earthquake, 2001

 Failure of Masonry between Openings

• A)Sikkim, India (2011) earthquake (Rai et al. 2012),

• B) Sarpole Zahab, Iran (2017) earthquake (Najafgholipour et al. 2022)
• C) El-Salvador (2001) earthquake (Brzev and Mitra 2007)
Turkey Earthquake 2015; Source: Caner gocer, (2015)
 Analysis of Masonry Building
Pier Analysis
Simplified approach for
analyzing masonry buildings
during an earthquake
by focusing on the
individual vertical piers
(wall sections between
openings) within the
masonry walls, considering
both their in-plane and out-
of-plane behavior,
essentially treating each
pier as a separate structural
element to assess the
building's overall seismic
resistance Horizontal and Vertical Wall segments; Drydale,
Hamid and Baker, (1994)
 Earthquake-Resistant Design Techniques in
Masonry
• Modern techniques for seismic resilience:
• - Reinforced Masonry: Steel bars embedded in walls.
• - Confined Masonry: Use of reinforced concrete bands.
• - Retrofitting: Addition of steel frames and fiber reinforcements.
• - Use of Engineered Bricks and Mortar: Enhanced strength and
durability.

• Innovative Approaches: Used for Earthquake-Resistant Design

of Structure
• - Base Isolation Techniques
• - Energy Dissipating Materials
 Literature Review
Authors Findings

Karatoni et. al. (1995) •Compared behavior of stone masonry buildings with timber floors/roof and brick masonry buildings
with concrete slabs. Stone masonry walls are subjected to out of plane failure under their own inertia
force whereas In brick masonry buildings with rigid floors, the latter restrain out-of-plane bending and
transfer transverse wall inertia forces to the parallel walls. Therefore the walls, and especially their
lower part, suffer mainly from in-plane stresses.
•This shows the main reason for the superior seismic resistance of brick masonry buildings is the
beneficial effect of rigid floors

Rao et. al. (2002) •Based on stress analysis and observed damage patterns of masonry buildings, he concluded that out-
of-plane flexural failure of walls is primarily responsible for collapse of masonry buildings during
earthquakes. To prevent this kind of failure and to improve the ductility of masonry walls, addition to
horizontal bands, vertical reinforcement called as “containment reinforcement” is used.

Gaanpathi et. al. (2011) •The paper studies the in-plane behavior of brick masonry wall panels, including the effects of
openings and reinforcement, to improve resistance to earthquake loads.
•Fully reinforced wall panel without opening performed well compared to other types of wall panels in
lateral load resistance and displacement ductility. In all the wall panels, shear cracks originated at
loading point and moved toward the compression toe of the wall.

Shrestha et. al. (2012) •. Out of the various retrofit methods employed, wall jacketing and splint and bandage, using steel
bars or galvanized wire mesh, have proven to be the most appropriate, both technically and
economically
•Alternate retrofit approach using Polypropylene mesh (PP-band) to case masonry walls, a low-cost
option for upgrading of low strength masonry buildings .
 Authors Findings

Rai et. al. (2014) •Cyclic tests were conducted on five half-scaled wall specimens with different sub-paneling schemes
using RC precast grid elements
•Inclined elements significantly add to lateral stiffness and strength depending on whether they can
develop a complete truss action for lateral loads.

Maidiawati et. al. (2017) •Studied influence of the opening in brick-masonry wall to seismic performance of reinforced concrete
frame structures
•Observed that diagonal shear crack pattern was found on brick-masonry wall without opening, on
other hand the different crack patterns were observed on brick-masonry wall with openings. Although
the opening in the brick masonry infill reduced the lateral strength and stiffness of the infilled RC
frame, it was still stronger and stiffer than the bare frame.

Gupta and Singhal (2020) •The comparative analysis showed that out of FRP, FRCM and ECC, ECC was most effective in improving
the in-plane capacity of CM walls, whereas the carbon-fiber reinforcement laid in a diagonal pattern
significantly improved the deformation capacity when compared with other strengthening schemes.
•Also wire reinforced cementitious matrix (WRCM) is a better choice as it had shown improvement in
both deformation and in-plane capacity and the required material is easily available

Meoni et. al. (2021) Smart Brick - piezoresistive brick-like sensors that can be embedded within masonry structures to
monitor strain and detect earthquake-induced damages. Allow monitoring of inaccessible areas.

Xie et. al. (2022) •Behavior of mortar-less interlocking brick walls through laboratory shaking table tests and numerical
modeling.
•Interlocking brick walls exhibit rocking response leading to toe crushing.
•Interlocking brick walls dissipate a substantial amount of energy through inter-brick friction, which
outweighs the energy dissipated by brick damage.
•Hence exhibit higher seismic resistance than conventional masonry walls in terms of strength and
deformation capacity under horizontal seismic excitations.
 Authors Findings

Zhang et. al. (2022) •Interlocking brick wall has a higher seismic resistance capacity than the conventional CMU wall.
•Inter-brick friction is the main energy dissipation mechanism in the interlocking brick wall. Because of
the rocking response, vertical component of the ground motion significantly influences the damage of
interlocking brick wall.
•The interlocking brick wall is insensitive to velocity pulses of ground motions due to its relatively high
natural frequency
Kumar et. al. (2022) •Seismic safety assessment of (URM) building using Pier analysis and FEM using SAP 20000.
•It is also observed that the pier analysis method is conservative compared to FEM, but can be used as
a simplified and quick tool in design offices for safety assessment, with reasonable accuracy.
•To safeguard the URM wall piers under lateral loads, a retrofitting technique is adopted by providing
vertical and horizontal belts called splints and bandages, respectively, using welded wire mesh (WWM)
reinforcement which enhanced lateral load capacity upto 3.6 times.
Alforno et. al. (2022) •Seismic behavior of masonry cross vaults with different brick patterns (radial and diagonal)
•Radial vaults experiencing global failures and diagonal vaults having more localized failures.
•Significantly affect their ductility, with diagonal brick patterns providing nearly double the
displacement capacity compared to radial patterns.

Shandiliya et. al. (2024) •Pushover analysis in finite element framework carried out to check ultimate strength, stiffness, and
energy absorption capacity of confined brick masonry with different types of openings is assessed.
•Openings smaller than 10% of the masonry area maintain load paths, but larger openings require
additional support. Rectangular openings with greater height than width exhibit superior
performance. Positioning of windows significantly influences wall strength, with placements farther
from the loading point proving favorable. Door placement also impacts ultimate strength, with central
placement compromising stiffness. Combining window openings with a centrally located door
maintains consistent strength but affects stiffness.
 Key Observations
Masonry structures are highly vulnerable to seismic events without proper design.
New techniques for earthquake resistant design of masonry structures suggested by
researchers are:-

• Use of precast inserts and horizontal and diagonal elements add to lateral stiffness
and dissipates a significant amount of energy during earthquakes to enhance the
seismic resistance of masonry buildings with openings.
• While openings in brick-masonry infills may decrease lateral strength and stiffness,
research showed that infilled frames with openings still outperform bare frames
• Nominally reinforcement at key locations in confined masonry can be provided
using ferrocement overlay, steel bands, and fiber-reinforced polymers (ECC, FRP,
WRCM)
• Use of mortar less interlocking bricks promotes energy dissipation via brick friction.
• Low cost retrofitting technique like Wall jacketing (splint and bandage technique),
using steel bars or galvanized wire mesh can be done .
• Brick-like sensors has been made which can be embedded within masonry
structures to monitor strain and detect earthquake-induced damages.
 Conclusion
• Masonry structure design is no longer a serious part of structural
engineering curriculum therefore there is a need to bridge this gap
by studying performance of URM and CM as Structural Solutions.
• Research can be carried out using Hybrid Modeling Approaches
(Combining analytical and data-driven methods) like machine
learning, for improved prediction accuracy.
• In order to improve seismic resilience, research is required to
examine the long-term durability of retrofitted masonry under cyclic
loads and self-healing technologies in masonry construction.
• There is a need for study to update seismic design codes with
specific criteria for unreinforced and confined masonry structures.