The assessment of the out-of-plane response of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings with cavity walls has been a popular topic in regions such as Central and Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China and several other countries. Cavity walls are particularly vulnerable as the out-of-plane capacity …

The seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings with cavity walls is of high relevance in regions such as in Central and Northern Europe, Australia, New Zealand and China because of the characteristics of the masonry building stock. A cavity wall consists of two separate parallel walls …

In case of induced seismicity, expectations from a structural monitoring system are different than in the case of natural seismicity. In this paper, monitoring results of a historical building in Groningen (Netherlands) in case of induced seismicity has been presented. Results of the monitoring, particularities …

Presentation of findings to the 'Nationaal Coördinator Groningen'

Groningen gas field is the largest on-land gas resource in the world and is being exploited since 1963. There are damaging earthquakes, the largest of which was 3.6 magnitude. The recursive induced earthquakes are often blamed for triggering the structural damages in thousands of houses in the area. …

This paper aims to quantify the cumulative damage of unreinforced masonry (URM) subjected to induced seismicity. A numerical model based on discrete element method (DEM) has been develop and was able to represented masonry wall panels with and without openings; which are common typologies of domestic …

The majority of houses in the Groningen gas field region, the largest in Europe, consist of unreinforced masonry material. Because of their particular characteristics (cavity walls of different material, large openings, limited bearing walls in one direction, etc.) these houses are exceptionally vulnerable …