Event | Seismic Resilience of Confined Masonry Buildings

Session Overview

Confined masonry is practiced across countries home to 3.5 billion people, nearly half the world. International codes allow a simplified design for it, but only within limits that are easy to miss. Dr. Svetlana Brzev, who has led the Confined Masonry Network since 2008, explains where that line is actually drawn, and what changes once you cross it.

Save My Spot Now

Who Should Attend

Structural and architectural engineers designing or reviewing confined masonry,especially without a national code to reference
Junior engineers who want a working design method before their first live project
Senior engineers assessing existing buildings or guiding junior staff

Learning Objectives

📌When does a prescriptive design stop being enough?

Confined masonry can be designed with prescriptive rules alone, but only within limits set by a single parameter, Wall Index. Height or irregularity changes what the code requires.

📌 Why can't a confined masonry wall be modeled like an RC frame with infill?

Confined masonry needs a numerical model that reflects the composite action between masonry and tie columns, not one built for a different structure.

📌 Where is CM still built without a code?

Many regions build it widely but have no formal design standard to follow.

Good to Know

What is confined masonry?
- A loadbearing wall system confined by RC tie columns and tie beams to prevent collapse in an earthquake.

What is Wall Index?
- The ratio of total wall area to floor area per direction, used to check lateral capacity under a prescriptive design.

Speaker

Dr. Svetlana Brzev

Professor at Department of Civil Engineering, University of British Columbia, Canada

Dr. Svetlana Brzev worked as a senior engineer at Sandwell Engineering in Vancouver, leading seismic assessment and retrofitting projects for buildings and other structures across Canada, Russia, Chile, and Peru. She now sits on the committees that write the standards engineers use directly, CSA S304 for masonry design in Canada and Eurocode 8 TC250/SC8/WG1 for seismic design and retrofitting of masonry buildings.