RESEARCH ARTICLE


FEM-DEM Modeling for Out-of-plane Loaded Masonry Panels: A Limit Analysis Approach



Emanuele Reccia*, 1, Antonio Cazzani2, Antonella Cecchi1
1 Universitá IUAV di Venezia, Dorsoduro 2206, 30122, Venezia, Italy
2 Universitá degli Studi di Cagliari, via Marengo 2, 09123 Cagliari, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2012 Reccia et al;

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Universita IUAV di Venezia, Dorsoduro 2206 30122 Venezia, Italy; Tel: +390412571297; Fax: +390415223627; E-mails: emreccia@iuav.it, emanuele.reccia@gmail.com


Abstract

In this work the performances of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) applied to kinematic limit analyses of the out-of-plane behavior of masonry wall panels (with different textures) are investigated.

A discrete model of masonry is proposed, which assumes that rigid blocks are connected by a mortar interface: this is ap-propriate for historical masonry, where mortar is much more deformable than blocks and joints thickness is negligible. Therefore blocks can be modeled as rigid bodies connected by zero thickness Mohr-Coulomb-type interfaces.

The applied method is known as FEM/DEM, which combines finite and discrete element models.

A comparison with well-known and meaningful examples presented by Giuffrè has been carried out in order to validate this method for studying the behavior of masonry. For this purpose, 2D DEM models reproducing walls sections have been considered: they reproduce masonry walls with different staggered blocks, in particular stack bond and running bond patterns, subjected to lateral loads.

Keywords: Discrete elements, masonry, out-of-plane behavior.