As it is known, the adobe structures have a high seismic vulnerability principally due to the low material strength
and sometimes due to the inadequate structural configuration. One way for understanding the seismic behaviour
of these structures is by experimental tests. However, those are costly and sometimes not easy to make. An
alternative for this is the analysis of adobe structures by numerical tools with the possibility to make parametric
studies for understanding the behaviour of different geometrical configurations.
In a previous work, some adobe material parameters have been calibrated based on a cyclic in-plane test. In this
paper, that work was extended to a numerical modelling of the non-linear dynamic behaviour of an adobe
module experimentally tested at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. For this, a continuum model in the
finite element program Abaqus/Explicit, was used to represent the adobe masonry as a homogeneous and isotropic material