ECCOMAS 2024

Large Displacement Analysis Of Masonry Structures Accounting For Damage And Friction

  • Addessi, Daniela (Sapienza University of Rome)
  • Benvenuti, Elena (University of Ferrara)
  • Gatta, Cristina (Sapienza University of Rome)
  • Nale, Marco (University of Ferrara)
  • Sacco, Elio (University of Naples Federico II)

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The scientific community continuously explores efficient and accurate numerical tools to predict masonry structural response. In fact, masonry material exhibits a very complex mechanical behavior due to its heterogeneous nature and the highly nonlinear response of the components, that is bricks/blocks and mortar joints. This study proposes a new modeling strategy coupling the Virtual Element (VE) and the Finite Element methods. This is based on the micromechanical description of the material and accounts for geometric and material nonlinearities. Particularly, within the corotational framework, the bricks are modeled as linear elastic material and are discretized with self-stabilized VEs with low-order displacement interpolation but enhanced strain description [1]. As for the zero-thickness interface elements representing the mortar joints, a damage-friction constitutive law [2] is assumed in conjunction with a large displacement corotational formulation. Numerical applications are performed to validate the proposed model. Obtained results, in terms of global response curves and damaging paths evolving in the tested structures up to the collapse, are compared with those recovered by other numerical models and experimental evidences. [1] M. Nale, C. Gatta, D. Addessi, E. Benvenuti and E. Sacco, An enhanced corotational Virtual Element Method for large displacements in plane elasticity. Under review [2] D. Addessi, C. Gatta, S. Marfia and E. Sacco, Multiscale analysis of in-plane masonry walls accounting for degradation and frictional effects. Int. J. Multiscale Comput. Eng., Vol. 18(2), pp. 159–180, 2020.