Top cited Paper in Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics

The paper Evaluation of force-based and displacement-based out-of-plane seismic assessment methods for unreinforced masonry walls through refined model simulations by Michele Godio and Katrin Beyer has been among the top cited papers for 2019-20 in the journal of Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics.

The work of the EESD lab uses refined numerical simulations based on discrete element modelling to evaluate the accuracy of assessment methods in predicting the acceleration at which the unreinforced masonry walls collapse under out-of-plane loading. The numerical results show that the displacement-based method is more accurate, robust, and safe than the force-based method. The comparison between numerical and analytical results shows that for walls characterised by a relatively high ratio of axial load to Euler's critical load, both assessment methods lead to an overestimation of the wall capacity. As a remedy, a modification to the methods based on a recently developed mechanical model is put forward and tested.

The article is accessible in ResearchGate and the publisher´s website.