Numerical issues on brittle shear failure of pier-wall continuous vertical joints in URM dutch buildings

Numerical issues on brittle shear failure of pier-wall continuous vertical joints in URM dutch buildings

Fusco, Daniela (Sapienza University of Rome)
Messali, F. (TU Delft Applied Mechanics)
Rots, J.G. (TU Delft Applied Mechanics)
Addessi, Daniela (Sapienza University of Rome)
Pampanin, Stefano (Sapienza University of Rome)

2022

Terraced houses built in the Netherland after 1980 are often characterized by the use of large units connected at corners by continuous thin layer mortar joints. Unlike the running bond pattern, usually modelled as a rigid connection, the vertical continuous connection may fail in shear and influence the global seismic capacity of the entire building. This work aims at investigating and comparing different numerical modelling approaches for simulating the vertical connections. Two different constitutive models are adopted to simulate the quasi-brittle nonlinear behaviour of the continuous joint, and their advantages and limitations are pointed out in terms of robustness and accuracy. The study considers both the component level in terms of U-shaped pier-wall configuration, and the full-scale structural level in terms of the global capacity for a two-storey masonry house assemblage, characterized by a running bond arrangement. The results of this work show that the shear failure involving the continuous joint usually reduces the strength capacity of the structure. Both the selection of constitutive models for the connection interface and masonry material are demonstrated to affect the results significantly. Decoupled direct traction-displacement relations for the interfaces appear to provide more robust results than coupled plasticity-based Coulomb friction laws. The selection of either a pre-fixed orthotropic smeared crack model for the masonry or a standard isotropic concrete-like rotating smeared crack formulation is demonstrated to strongly influence the activation of the different failure mechanisms and hence the response of the structure.

Constitutive models
Continuous vertical joints
Numerical modelling
Unreinforced masonry

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1eb3870d-b7f6-49db-af04-fe6ac06852ef

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2022.114078

2023-07-01

0141-0296

Engineering Structures, 258

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2022 Daniela Fusco, F. Messali, J.G. Rots, Daniela Addessi, Stefano Pampanin