Benchmarking the software packages to model and assess the seismic response of unreinforced masonry existing buildings through nonlinear static analyses

Seismic modelling of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is addressed worldwide according to different approaches, not only at research level, but also in the current engineering practice. The analysts have so many different possible choices in interpreting the response of the examined structure and in transferring them into the model for the assessment that the achievable results may turn out in a huge scattering, as also testified by various comparative studies already available in the literature. Within this context, this paper is an overview of a wide research activity addressed to the benchmarking of software packages for the modelling and seismic assessment through nonlinear static analyses of URM buildings. The activity conveyed the effort of many experts from various Italian universities and was funded by the Italian Department of Civil Protection within the context of the ReLUIS projects. The main objective of the research is the critical analysis and the systematic comparison of the results obtained by using several modelling approaches and software package tools on selected benchmark examples in order to provide a useful and qualified reference to the engineering and scientific community. To this aim, different benchmark examples-of increasing complexity, ranging from the single panel to 3D existing buildings-have been specifically designed. While other papers from the teams involved in the research project delve on the specific results achieved on each of these case studies, this paper illustrates an overview on such benchmark structures, their purpose and the standardized criteria adopted to compare the results. Moreover, the whole set of benchmark case-studies is made available in this paper through their detailed input data allowing to be replicated also by other researchers and analysts