Masonry made sexy again: High level research, professional practice and innovation

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• Prof Paulo Laurenco, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal
• Monday 13 March 2017, 15:00-16:00
• Cambridge University Engineering Department, Oatley Room 1.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Karen Mitchell.

The evolution of structural masonry is briefly reviewed in the presentation, from old thrust line behavior to modern global behavior using shear walls.

Modern societies understand built cultural heritage as a landmark of culture and diversity. Only during the last decades the idea that ancient buildings could be conserved and reused became appealing. Large investments have been concentrated in this field, leading to impressive developments in the areas of inspection, non-destructive testing, monitoring and structural analysis of historical constructions. These developments, and recent guidelines for reuse and conservation, allow for safer, economical and more adequate remedial measures. The presentation first addresses the issues of the methodology to adopt, of different cases studies and of present challenges.

For modern structural masonry, the use of unreinforced, confined and reinforced masonry is briefly addressed, discussing the influence of seismic hazard and presenting different solutions adopted in developed countries. Recent research on building systems for modern masonry structures is presented, together with conclusions on the performance of the system for in-plane lateral loading. Finally, the performance of masonry infills and recent shaking table tests in Portugal are also presented.

Bio:

Dr Paulo Laurenco is Full Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering (DEC), University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal, and coordinator of the Group of Historical and Masonry Structures. He is also Head of the Institute in Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, with current contracted funding of 7.5 Million Euro and more than 100 PhD students. He has supervised 45 PhD theses and is author of more than 1000 publications, with an h-index of 36. He is experienced in the fields of NDT , advanced experimental and numerical techniques, innovative strengthening techniques and earthquake engineering. He has worked as a consultant on several projects, including more than one hundred monuments in different countries and has been responsible for several R&D projects with the masonry industry.

This talk is part of the Engineering Department Structures Research Seminars series.

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