2nd Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering 2CroCEE

Unreinforced unconfined solid brick masonry walls were experimentally tested in full scale (233x241x25cm) and reduced scale (100x100x25cm) at the laboratory of the Institute for materials and structures, Faculty of Civil Engineering in Sarajevo. Cantilever walls were loaded in cyclic shear or pushed monotonically. In order to study the nonlinear behavior in a detailed and global manner, finite element meso- and macro-models of the tested walls were created using finite element software Diana FEA. Brick units are discretized by continuum elements in a meso-model and discontinuity in displacement field is introduced by interface elements between units. In order to account for brick cracking, an additional interface element was added in the unit middle. Continuum macro-models approximate heterogeneous masonry wall by a single material and discretization is independent of brick layout, i.e., bricks, mortar and unit-mortar interface are smeared out in the continuum. Recently developed engineering masonry model is an orthotropic total-strain continuum model with smeared cracking and it was used with shell elements. Numerical results are verified against the data obtained from experimental research program. In case of low precompression, the walls exhibit rocking failure mode while for higher vertical stresses diagonal cracking occurs. The results show good matching with the experimentally obtained curves regarding the ultimate load and ductility. Backbone curve extracted from the cyclic test was also compared with the analytical expressions for displacement capacity and strength, and fine matching was obtained.