The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Evaluation of seismic design provisions for masonry in the United States

Sveinsson, Bjorn Ingi; Mayes, Ronald L.; McNiven, Hugh D.

UCB/EERC-81/10, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1981-08, 170 pages (620.3/S92/1981)

This report presents an evaluation of two sets of seismic design provisions for masonry construction in the U.S., namely, the 1979 Uniform Building Code and the ATC 3-06: Tentative Provisions for the Development of Seismic Design Regulations for Buildings. The method of evaluation is based on an over-design ratio which compares the shear wall area required to resist code loads with that required to resist realistic earthquake loads. The latter area is determined based on test results from an on-going masonry research program. A summary of the test results is included in this report. The report also contains a comparison of the shear wall areas required by the two sets of seismic provisions, and changes to both sets of provisions are suggested.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-81-10.pdf (11 MB)