Reinforced masonry in Europe - Working strategy for the preparation of the State of the Art Report

The behaviour of reinforced masonry structures, especially when reinforcement is provided to enhance the mechanical properties, i.e. different strength types or resistance of masonry, is still not completely investigated or thoroughly understood. A significant lack of knowledge can be observed in many areas, especially in Europe. As a result of this situation, the Commission W023 - Wall Structures of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB) set up a Working Group (WG5) - Reinforced and Prestressed Masonry a few years ago, of which the authors are convenors. The first task of the WG5 is to produce a State of the Art document covering reinforced masonry applications in order to identify topics for future research and development. This document will serve as a contribution for the revision of European Structural Masonry Code EN 1996-1-1:2005 (Eurocode 6) [1], which is planned to be done between 2015 and 2018. It was agreed at the last W023 Commission Meeting held in Eindhoven in October 2013 that the preparation of the State of the Art document should cover the specific experience and problems connected with reinforced and prestressed masonry structures under static and dynamic/seismic loading, also outside Europe. The process of preparing such a report is now underway and the following article describes the planned scope of the document.