Modelling strategies for traditional earthquake resistant solutions enhancing wall-to-wall connections

Abstract

Traditional masonry buildings located in seismic prone areas often present construction techniques empirically developed to improve the buildings seismic performance, for example by enhancing their box-behaviour in order to avoid premature out-of-plane failure of masonry walls. Often, earthquake-resistant techniques consist of a combination of locally available materials, such as timber or metal ties, embedded in masonry components. Finite Elements Macro-modelling approximates masonry as a homogeneous isotropic continuum, in order to obtain simpler and larger meshes, because the model does not have to describe the internal structure of masonry. One of the main challenges related to the numerical simulations is the use of adequate constitutive materials models able to replicate the non-linear behaviour of masonry. In the framework of macro-modelling approach of the masonry walls, an additional challenge is the modelling strategy to simulate the contribution of elements embedded in masonry, which work as traditional earthquake resistant solutions. This work presents the results of the numerical analyses simulating the out-of-plane response of reduced scale (1:2) U-shaped stone masonry walls built with earthquake resistant techniques embedded at the corners, namely steel ties in wall 1 and timber lath beams in wall 2, which were tested experimentally. The work primarily aims at the comparison of the results obtained with two different modelling strategies for the two reinforcing solutions, namely using 3D beams elements (CL18B) and solid elements (CHX60). The outcomes provided by this work represent a useful contribution to achieve a deeper understanding regarding the consistency of the aforementioned strategies in capturing the influence of traditional of earthquake resistant techniques on the out-of-plane response of reinforced stone masonry walls.