Analysis of out-of-plane behaviour of tall reinforced masonry walls under P-Δ effects

In the framework of the DISWall research project, funded by the European Commission, an innovative construction system aimed at building mainly tall, load bearing reinforced masonry walls for one-storey industrial and commercial buildings, was developed. These structures are often provided with deformable roofs and, as a consequence, out-of-plane forces can be significant in the wall behaviour and can lead to the onset of second order effects. For this structural configuration, a special set-up for out-of-plane cyclic tests was designed and built, to assess experimentally the structural behaviour and calibrate moment-curvature relationships. Non-linear static parametric analyses were carried out, aimed at studying the influence of vertical load, wall slenderness and percentage of vertical reinforcement on the wall behaviour. The present contribution describes the results of first and second order bending moment analysis and of numerical parametric assessment.