Abstract
AbstractPlane‐stress and shell macromodels are often preferred to analyze masonry structures because of their numerical efficiency. However, they often misestimate the hysteretic behavior of the structures. Additionally, due to the nature of smeared cracks, the cracks may be diffused. This article proposes a new orthotropic model, which focuses on the cyclic, nonlinear behavior of brick masonry structures. The model adopts a total‐strain based rotating crack approach. It describes tensile and compressive failure in the rotating principal directions, while including indirectly shear failure through an internal iterative algorithm. Two distinctions are made regarding the tensile postpeak and unloading/reloading behavior based on the crack orientation at crack initiation: a steep softening branch and secant unloading are adopted when the crack angle corresponds to in‐plane flexural failure, and a softening branch and bilinear unloading are adopted when the crack angle corresponds to diagonal shear failure. Bilinear unloading/reloading is adopted in compression, resulting in a cyclic behavior resembling shear. The constitutive model was implemented in a finite element software and validated against experimental results. The numerical simulations reproduced well the experimental outcomes in terms of envelope load‐displacement curve and hysteretic behavior, while simultaneously they resulted in localized damage, representative of the experimental crack patterns.
Highlights
Masonry is one of the oldest building materials in the world
Thanks to the advances in the field of numerical methods, four different approaches have been developed for the numerical modeling of masonry structures: macroelement based methods, like the lumped mass approach and the equivalent frame method,[1,2,3] discrete element methods (DEM),[4,5,6,7] finite element methods (FEM), and most recently hybrid methods, like the finite-discrete element methods (F-DEM)[8,9] or the macro-distinct element (M-DEM).[10]
The constitutive model presented in this paper is based on a TSRC concept[29] and it incorporates a number of newly implemented characteristics to make its application more suitable for masonry structures
Summary
Masonry is one of the oldest building materials in the world. Due to its aesthetics, availability and ease of construction, it is found in many structures around the world, from historic monuments to residential buildings. Predicted crack patterns are sometimes too diffuse: wide zones of smeared cracked Gauss points have been reported (e.g., References 18,20) rather than the localized discrete cracks identified in the last stages of tests This is in part expected, since macromodels do not depict the exact geometry of a structure; a realistic damage localization is an important factor to consider when the structure needs to be strengthened. Damage-plasticity models tackle this issue, but even though such models have been developed for concrete (e.g., References 26,27), and a few attempts have been made for interface elements,[11,14,28] only one is available for macromodeling of masonry.[25] Thirdly, existing models may not always estimate the postpeak part of the load-displacement response correctly, and in general models require the calibration of a large number of material input parameters to obtain accurate predictions.
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