Abstract
This study is motivated from the collapse of an old masonry building in the Southern Italy. FEM analyses are carried out focusing on the influence of the contrasting wall on the stability of the vault. In the analyses, the structure is subjected to a damage scenario on the contrasting wall due to a demolition project, and the consequence of the damage is evaluated using the explicit dynamic simulation made by Ls-Dyna®. A micro modelling technique (discrete FEM model) is adopted to model the masonry: the mortar is modelled by contact surfaces between the masonry units, which are explicitly modelled by blocks of meshes. This modelling technique is proven to be effective to predict the collapse behavior of the structure.
Highlights
Masonry structures are widespread in the world, built with different materials and different construction techniques
Superseded by concrete construction in the 20th century, there are numerous masonry residential buildings still used for housing and other scopes
In southern Italy in particular, unreinforced masonry buildings built in the first half of the 20th century represent a significant portion of the residential building stock, especially in rural areas, with clay brick masonry being the most common material
Summary
Masonry structures are widespread in the world, built with different materials and different construction techniques. Tzamtzis and Asteris [7] summarize several methods and finite element models developed for the static and dynamic analysis of unreinforced masonry walls, focusing on the constitutive model for bricks and mortar. They conclude that most of these models treat masonry, either as an ideal homogeneous material with constitutive equations that differ from those of the components, or two-phase material models where the components are considered separately to account for the interaction between them. A simplification of the above is found in simplified micro-modelling, where expanded units are represented by continuous elements and mortar joints and the interface by discontinuous elements. Mortar joints are ignored and replaced by interface elements, whose characteristics are based on interface behavior (see [10])
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