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The survey of damages after recent earthquakes have shown the fragility of masonry 

churches  against  the  out-of-plane  overturning  of  the  façade.  This  failure  mechanism  is 

currently  analyzed  having  recourse  to  a  rigid  body  model,  using  either  limit  analysis  with 

kinematic approach, or dynamic analysis under rocking motion. However, both the 

aforementioned methods neglect the interaction with the lateral walls, leading to an 

underestimation of the effective structural capacity under seismic action. The main goal of this 

work  is  therefore  to  investigate  the  effect  of  the  interlocking  between  the  façade  and  the 

transversal wall and the influence of the quality of masonry in out-of-plane overturning. For 

this  purpose,  a  refined  model  of  masonry  through  a  Discrete  Element  Method  is  developed, 

based on a detailed recognition of masonry units. The acceleration and displacement capacity 

are estimated through quasi-static pushover and pulse-based dynamic analyses and compared 

to those calculated for the rigid body model. The proposed methodology is then applied to a 

sample of three single-nave masonry churches that suffered damages during the 2009 L’Aquila, 

Italy earthquake.

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== Full document ==

<pdf>Media:Draft_Content_475830282p956.pdf</pdf>

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