Numerical Simulation of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings with Timber Diaphragms
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The submitted paper is very interesting. It treats a very important issue in the retrofitting of unreinforced masonry buildings. A very emerging retrofitting technique are timber diaphragms. The utilization of timber preserves the original material, increases the load-bearing capacity, and also influences seismic behavior through a diaphragm behavior. The authors provide a broad investigation also based on experimental results. The authors' findings and conclusions are considered relevant for the research and practice.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to the reviewer for her/his time, opinions and kind comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The submitted study presents a computationally efficient analysis of masonry buildings using macro-elements in 3D. The application of 3D macro-element analysis of masonry constructions is quite limited in the literature; hence, this article provides valuable data/information and example. Also, the authors investigated the various strengthening solutions using the very same approach and discussed their influence on the dynamic behavior of an unreinforced masonry building. Thus, I recommend this manuscript for publication once the authors perform the following suggestions.
Line 22: Please consider giving reference related to other modeling strategies as well to better cover the computational approaches in the analysis of historical unreinforced masonry buildings: DOI: doi:10.4203/ccp.99.119 ; DOI: 10.1016/j.istruc.2020.08.026 ; DOI: 10.1016/j.engstruct.2009.02.007
Section 2.5: It does not make sense to give a reference that is “under-preparation”. I believe the authors should explicitly explain what they used for damping and provide the relevant mathematical formulation (which does not have to be detailed).
Line 275-276: It would be great to show the directions (x and y /N-S and E-W) on a visual of the structure in the article.
Line 336-349: Although I agree with the comments/discussion, I think the authors should include another IDA, where there is no floor system in the model, which will help and underline the need for modeling the floors / floor-wall connections as well. Interestingly, I was expecting a more significant effect of “connection retrofitting,” but it is also related to many different factors.
Line 385-395: Please share a typical failure mechanics figure (from article 57 or similar work).
Since the authors develop this methodology to obtain computationally-cost effective results, please provide the run time (together with the employed processer-computer features).
Author Response
The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to the reviewer for her/his time and kind comments. Please find the .pdf with the detailed reply to the comments in the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I suggest accepting the revised version of the manuscript. The authors addressed all the comments given by the reviewer.
