Abstract

Engineers work hard to convert the highly uncertain and nonlinear behavior of historic masonry structures into something that can be understood with mathematical certainty. Therefore, practical and also accurate structural analysis techniques are still needed for the preserve the historical monuments as a huge cultural heritage. In this context, determining the mechanical properties of historical walls under in-plane and out-of-plane lateral loadings is one of the most important aim. This study aims to investigate the three dimensional (3D) nonlinear behaviour of stone walls subjected to a combination of lateral and vertical loads using approprate constitutive numerical modeling. For this purpose, a simplified micro modeling approach has been proposed for the 3D nonlinear finite element analysis (NLFEA) of stone wall. The dry-stone masonry wall from the literature has been used in the verification step for the proposed model. After that, the new two-whyte stone wall has been constructed in accordance with the original material characteristics derived from the experimental studies and tested under shear compression. Finally, numerical results of NLFEA and experimental results of walls have been compared. It was observed that the numerical analysis results are well matched with the experimental ones.

Abstract

Homogenization procedures have been gaining more and more emphasis in the field of numerical analysis of composite materials. A homogenization procedure is based on the assumption that a set of equations or a representative element that can provide a response equivalent to the one provided by the actual material exists.

A numerical multiscale homogenization will be shown where the behavior of the whole composite is obtained by a micromechanical study of the material components and their interaction within of the composite microstructure through an RVE model. The proposed formulation uses a non-linear activation function in the structural scale and its task is to predict if a material point in the structure is in linear or non-linear range. Because of this, the developed strategy only solves the microscopic Boundary Value Problem using the RVE for the non-linear integration points found.

The procedure will be used in the nonlinear numerical simulaction of an eco-composite sanwich panel subjected to a four point bending test.