Collapse of a Masonry Wall in an Industrial Building: Diagnosis by Numerical Modeling

This paper presents the analysis of a failure involving the partial collapse of a masonry wall made of precast concrete blocks in an industrial building as a result of the action of the wind. A field survey was carried out to investigate the origin of the failure, which pointed to defective building practices as the possible cause. At the same time, complementary numerical modeling was performed to simulate the coupled fluidstructure behavior, as well as a parametric study and optimization based on Design of Experiments (DOE) to determine the influence of the principal variables in the wall behavior in the presence of wind loads. The lessons learned in the course of the study are explained in the final section. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0000310. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.