M. A. Najafgholipour - PhD Candidate, Department of Civil Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
M. R. Maheri - Professor of Civil Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Considerable number of numerical and experimental studies has been carried out to investigate the behaviour of masonry walls under seismic loading. The studies to-date have either considered the in-plane response or the out of plane response of the wall separately without considerations for any possible interaction between the two responses. During an earthquake the building is subjected to a fast changing, three dimensional acceleration field and simultaneously undergo in-plane and out of plane loading. It is often noted that in the field of brittle materialstrength, presence of one type of loading on a structural element may affect the strength of that element against another type of loading. This type of strength interaction is seen for example in combined axial and flexural loading or the combined shear and torsional loading of an RC element. It seems that this type of interaction may occur in the case of combined in-plane shear and out of plane bending loads in masonry walls. For this reason, a series of push over tests with different levels of simultaneous in-plane shear and out of plane bending actions are carried out on small brick walls. The tests results indicate noticeable interaction between the in-plane shear and out of plane bending strengths of brick walls.

masonry, brick wall, in-plane shear, out of plane bending, interaction