ABSTRACT
This paper presents an accurate and efficient technique for the structural analysis of masonry arch structures subject to dead and imposed loads. Masonry is treated as a composite material and a two-stage homogenisation technique is used to model its structural response. The first stage -homogenisation considers modelling of masonry units including the bed and perpend joints into a homogeneous, orthotropic material. Second stage homogenisation is invoked when cracking of any of the masonry constituents, i.e. units or mortar joints, is detected. Here, the position and orientation of the crack is calculated and the crack is subsequently smeared into the surrounding homogenised material. By adopting this approach the computational effort necessary for standard non-linear finite element (FE) analysis of large three-dimensional masonry structures is considerable reduced and an accurate analysis becomes tractable using a standard workstation or PC. The method is validated using a physical model of an arch structure. The technique is used to model an historic bridge and the results indicate that the approach adopted is highly efficient and permits the accurate analysis of general 3D masonry structures.
