Design of Multi Storeyed Masonry Building

Abstract

Masonry buildings are the most common type of construction used for all housing around the world. There are innumerable advantages of masonry construction such as thermal comfort, sound control, possibility of addition and alteration after construction, less formwork, easy and inexpensive repair, use of locally available materials, need of less skilled labours. Because of the merits mentioned above this type of construction is employed in the rural, urban and hilly regions up to its optimum, since it is flexible enough to accommodate itself according to the prevailing environmental conditions. Although this type of construction is most oftenly preferred and most frequently employed yet it is not completely perfect regard to seismic efficiency. The post earthquake survey has proved that the masonry buildings are most vulnerable to and have suffered maximum damages in the past earthquakes. The present work is a step towards to illustrate a procedure for seismic analysis and design of a masonry building. It gives detail procedure of the seismic analysis and design of a four storeyed masonry residential building. The procedure is divided into several distinctive steps in order to create a confidence that masonry buildings may also be designed as engineered construction. It also include the study of different codes from a number of countries on the design of masonry structures with respect to the design philosophy.