Earthquake performance of unreinforced masonry residential buildings designed to Australian Standards

This paper examines the earthquake resistance of unreinforced masonry residential structures up to 15 m in height, with a view to identifying the critical actions under a range of conditions. The study considers the wall forces and associated actions due to earthquake loads corresponding to the proposed revision of the Australian Standard for earthquake actions, AS 1170.4. The seismic demands under various conditions are compared with the corresponding seismic capacities given by the Australian Standard for masonry structures, AS 3700. A parametric study was used to examine the effects of a wide range of parameters, including number of storeys, wall geometries, support conditions and openings. The results of the parametric study indicate, for a typical office building and a typical home unit building, the range of conditions leading to earthquake failure using the current design criteria of AS 3700.