Dominik Müller, Valentin Förster and Carl-Alexander Graubner
Dominik Müller, Research Assistant, Institute of Concrete and Masonry Structures, Technische Universität Darmstadt, FranziskaBraun-Straße 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany, mueller@massivbau.tu-darmstadt.de
Valentin Förster, Research Assistant, Institute of Concrete and Masonry Structures, Technische Universität Darmstadt, FranziskaBraun-Straße 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany, foerster@massivbau.tu-darmstadt.de
Carl-Alexander Graubner, Professor, Institute of Concrete and Masonry Structures, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Franziska-BraunStraße 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany, graubner@massivbau.tu-darmstadt.de
ABSTRACT
Masonry is one of the oldest and most traditional construction types. Thus, corresponding safety concepts are often still based upon experience instead of being calibrated by structural reliability methods. Because of that, reliability analyses of masonry structures are needed to see if safety factors should be adjusted. Since masonry is a non-homogenous material, considering the spatial variability of material properties is very important when assessing the reliability of masonry walls. Therefore, it is useful to know if and to what extent spatial variability increases or decreases the reliability of masonry walls. Amongst others, this depends on the length of a wall due to the capability of load redistribution. Also, it depends on the slenderness of a wall or rather the governing failure mode which could be local compression or stability failure. This paper shows the effect of spatial variability on the load-bearing capacity of masonry walls in terms of mean value, scatter and design value. For this purpose, walls of varying length and slenderness were analysed with and without the consideration of spatial variability by performing Monte Carlo simulations.
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