Empirical assessment of the out-of-plane strength of unreinforced masonry infills with openings under earthquake loading

Formulations for the assessment of the out-of-plane strength capacity of unreinforced masonry (URM) infills have been proposed in the literature and introduced in building codes. However, these formulations often do not account for the presence of openings. In this note, based on experimental data, a code-oriented proposal is presented for the correction of the out-of-plane strength of URM infills with openings. The experimental results collected are also discussed based on Dawe and Seah’s mechanical model, published in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering in 1989.