Abstract: The paper gives an overview of the characteristics of masonry walls, bricks and mortar, with reference to the mechanical characteristics of the walls. The focus was placed on unreinforced masonry walls (URM) and their earthquake behavior. Empirical and experimental data were used. The results of the numerical analysis of a single unreinforced masonrywall, obtained through the use of two modern software packages, ABAQUS and SAP2000, are in good agreement with the experiments conducted at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Sarajevo. After the verification of the results, the masonry wallsstrengthened by applying mechanical dampers without and with a metal frame were analyzed.

Keywords: Unreinforced masonry walls (URM), earthquake, seismic loads, strengthening of masonry walls, mechanical dampers, passive dampers, metal frames, energy dissipation devices, seismic isolation, expirimental testing of masonry walls, numerical analysis of masonry walls

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