Resilience-based design of reinforced masonry wall buildings under blast loading

This chapter aims to quantify the robustness of Reinforced Masonry Shear Walls (RMSW) buildings against blast-induced progressive collapse that might result from a primary RMSW removal. The proposed methodology presents a threat-independent design approach that addresses one of the major difficulties facing probabilistic risk analysis under blast loading. The chapter presents a holistic resilience-based design of RMSW buildings for the next generation of protective design codes. It focuses on one of the social units which is the structural system; as they serve a community vital function in disaster recovery. The chapter addresses the progressive collapse of RMSW buildings under blast, and considers two approaches in designing against progressive collapse. The first approach is the direct design method, where it includes an explicit consideration for the progressive collapse resistance. The second approach is the indirect design method, where the progressive collapse resistance is considered implicitly through different provisions for minimum strength, continuity, and ductility requirements.