Innovative Voxel Approach for Homogenized Out-of-Plane Analysis of Non-periodic Masonry Walls

Abstract

This paper presents a MATLAB-based procedure for the derivation of out-of-plane homogenized failure surfaces for masonry elements. The procedure follows a so-called “voxel approach” that allows the creation of a 3D finite element mesh directly from the sketch of a masonry element. This approach is implemented into a dedicated MATLAB script. The validation of the procedure is performed by extracting homogenized out-of-plane failure surfaces for a stretcher bond masonry cell. These are compared to those available in literature for an analogous cell, obtained with a different model. The correspondence between the two models is satisfying, confirming the reliability of the presented procedure. Eventually, the behavior under out-of-plane actions is investigated for two single and one double curvature masonry cells. Homogenized out-of-plane failure surfaces and relevant failure modes are extracted for all the different cases and compared to those obtained for the flat case. The results for the curved masonry cells show an increase in out-of-plane resistance for one of the single curvature cases and for the double curvature case. Moreover, the deformed shapes at collapse are consistent with the expectations.