Just as with shear stress on the edges of masonry walls, prestressing through the confinement and restraint of all four sides of the wall improves the load-carrying capacity under lateral loads.
The extra load arising from prestressing leads to increased flexural strength of the masonry. The confinement of the edges results in relatively smaller span moments. In this case, the torsional stiffness of the reinforced concrete frame is important. This is determined by the frame itself as well as by its integration within the building.
As a supplement to [4], an examination of panel loading was also performed within the guidelines of a research project at the TU Dresden, Chair for Structural Design, on behalf of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning on the subject of “Confined Masonry as an Option for Increasing the Load-Carrying Capacity of Stiffening Walls”[9].
The various influences are to be initially researched on the basis of various analytical observations and a small numerical study. A thorough, experimentally-based clarification of the load-carrying capacity of the panels was not possible within the framework of the research project.