Review of recent progress on the compressive behavior of masonry prisms

•Novel materials developed in recent years significantly improve mechanical properties of prisms.•Mutual dependency of many factors affecting prism compressive behavior was elaborated.•Strain monitoring and damage detection in prisms are discussed with MDT and NDT emerging technologies.•Comparisons between mechanical properties predicted by masonry codes and obtained by the revised studies.•Future research challenges on compressive behavior of masonry prisms were identified. Masonry prisms have been widely used in research and quality control of masonry structures, as they are simplified models that can represent the interaction between different masonry components. Although much progress has been recently made on the compressive behavior of masonry prisms, review papers on this topic were published many years ago. Then, this paper aimed to investigate the current state-of-the-art on this topic. The following contributions derived from this review: identification and comparison of the compressive behavior of prisms constructed with innovative materials created in recent years; detection of topics for improvement of masonry design codes, associated with the mutual dependency of many factors affecting the mechanical performance of prisms; discussions of prism case scenarios often neglected in past literature; compilation of advances in model predictions of prisms’ compressive behavior; emerging technologies for assessment of safety of masonry elements is discussed based on minor-destructive tests (MDT) and non-destructive tests (NDT) for strain monitoring and damage detection in masonry prisms. Future development trends for studies on this topic were also presented.