Induced seismicity has been an issue in the area of Groningen in the north of the Netherlands. Due to gas extraction from the Groningen gas field, these induced earthquakes have occurred more frequently, especially since large-scale extraction began in the 1960s. Following the reduction of gas extraction since 2018, a slight decrease in the number of induced earthquakes has been observed. Nevertheless, severe damage to buildings in the Groningen area remains a significant risk. The building stock is largely composed of unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, which were not designed according to a seismic code. These buildings were originally designed for wind resistance, providing limited lateral capacity, and making them vulnerable to earthquake forces.
The assessment of the seismic behaviour of unreinforced masonry has been extensively studied at Delft University of Technology. Within the framework of a large-scale testing campaign, a quasi-static cyclic pushover test on a masonry assemblage was performed at the Stevin II laboratory of Delft University of Technology. This experimental campaign was designed to serve as a benchmark for both numerical and analytical models. The masonry assemblage, chosen to represent a typical terraced house built between 1960 and 1980 in the Groningen area, consists of calcium silicate masonry walls and concrete floors. Thereafter, finite element models were created to reproduce the experimental results. However, relying on a single configuration limits the study, and additional cases will be studied numerically in this work to explore a wider range of geometric variations.