Masonry wall under out of-the-plane loading: an approach with geometrical variables for determining of kinematic collapse multiplier

The objective of our work is to present a procedure for determining of collapse multiplier of out of-the-plane seismic loads for masonry walls, generically constrained on the boundary, also with openings. The method, founded on the limit analysis theorems, aims to determine the lower kinematic collapse multiplier. The main feature of this work is the assumption of a discretization by few rigid triangular elements, but having movable nodes. The procedure implementation uses the Excel and Visual Basic programs synergy, and the optimal solution is obtained by the Excel’s solver. The method appears very simple and the early computational results obtained seem to be in good agreement with those achieved by other authors with other formulations.