After summarising the failure criteria for unreinforced masonry panels provided by the new Italian technical law (NTC 2008), the paper presents a numerical study aimed to investigate the b shape factor. This shape factor is a coefficient used to evaluate the ultimate shear strength of masonry panels for the failure mechanism with diagonal cracking. The numerical results show that the computed values of the coefficient b are higher than those proposed by the rules. Consequently, the shear strength obtained applying the equation given by the NTC 2008 does not appear conservative.