Seismic design of tension wall-diaphragm anchorage for historical unreinforced masonry buildings

The absence of appropriate structural connections is known to be one of the main factors contributing to the activation of out-of-plane mechanisms of masonry walls that can compromise the entire stability of a building. The high vulnerability of historical unreinforced masonry buildings to these types of mechanisms imposes the necessity to develop engineered strengthening solutions capable of ensuring positive wall-diaphragm anchorage to work in tension. A design methodology was developed covering aspects related to the estimation of the seismic demand and the design of a retrofit solution studied experimentally. The proposed design for the tension wall-diaphragm anchorage is one more step for the integrated approach to develop an "engineered strengthening", which started with the experimental campaign on the prototypes proposed by the company Monumenta Lda. The proposed procedure is a force-based design method and aims at assisting practitioners on implementing a simplified calculation of the tension anchors.