This study investigates the seismic performance of existing unreinforced masonry buildings considering the effects of different material properties selected from design codes’ assumptions and experimental values. For this purpose, work was conducted to analyze a selection of existing buildings in Albania designed with typical methodologies of the past structural design codes. Experimental investigations were carried out on bricks and mortars extracted from the selected buildings, as well as a series of regular and irregular sized mortar specimens prepared in the laboratory for comparative evaluation purpose. In addition, diagonal compression tests were performed on two full-size (1.2 m × 1.2 m) masonry walls built in the laboratory, which were prepared based on the existing building’s construction method and material properties. Selected typical URM buildings were analyzed with commercial program CDSWin using different masonry mechanical characteristics that were obtained from experimental work in this study. The equivalent frame method (EFM) was used for the modeling of the buildings and pushover analysis was performed to obtain their seismic capacity. To evaluate the seismic response of each case, a comparison was established between the drift ratio and maximum base shear. As a result, using the code assumptions for the mechanical properties of masonry, overly conservative results were obtained. To understand better and clarify how stresses are being distributed in the walls, it is essential to perform experimental investigations to acquire the representative masonry characteristics such that a reliable structure assessment and retrofitting could be implemented.

这项研究考虑了从设计规范的假设和实验值中选择的不同材料特性的影响，研究了现有非钢筋砌体建筑的抗震性能。为此目的，进行了工作，以分析阿尔巴尼亚采用过去结构设计规范的典型方法设计的现有建筑物。对从选定建筑物中提取的砖和灰浆以及在实验室制备的一系列常规和不规则尺寸的灰浆标本进行了实验研究，以进行比较评估。此外，还对实验室中建造的两座全尺寸（1.2 m×1.2 m）砌体墙进行了对角线压缩测试，这些墙是根据现有建筑物的建造方法和材料特性而准备的。使用商业程序CDSWin分析选定的典型URM建筑物，使用从本研究中的实验工作获得的不同砌体机械特性。等效框架法（EFM）用于建筑物建模，并进行推覆分析以获得其抗震能力。为了评估每种情况的地震响应，在漂移比和最大基础剪力之间建立了比较。结果，使用砌体力学性能的代码假设，获得了过于保守的结果。为了更好地理解并弄清应力如何在墙壁中分布，进行实验研究以获取具有代表性的砌体特征至关重要，以便可以进行可靠的结构评估和翻新。