Mahmoud Reza MAHERI - Professor, Department of civil and environmental engineering, Shiraz Universit y, Shiraz, Iran
M. Amir NAJAFGHOLIPOUR - Assistant professor, Department of civ il and environmental engineering, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran

During an earthquake a wall is subjected to a three dimensional accelerati on field and undergoes simultaneous in-plane and out-of-plane loading. The presence of one type of loadin g on a structural element affects the strength of that element against another type of loading. A considerable n umber of numerical and experimental studies, carried out to-date to investigate the behaviour of masonry walls under seismic loading, have considered the in-p lane or the out-of-plane response of the wall separately without due consideration for any possible interraction between the two responses. In this paper, the results of a series numerical parametric studies are c arried out on full scale unreinforced masonry walls are presented. The considered parameters are material properties of masonry and aspect ratio of the w alls. Current study is in continuing of the previous experime ntal and numerical studies carried out by authors before. The parametric studies indicate that the material properties and aspect ratio of the walls has considerable effects of interaction curves of masonry walls . Also the elastic material properties and inelast ic material properties in tension are more effective on the in-plane and out of plane loads interaction in mason ry walls.

Masonry, In-plane shear, Out-of-plane bending, Strength capacity interaction, seismic response