ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses research aimed at investigating the relationship between fire and post-fire mechanical behaviour of masonry walls, accounting for numerical tools to establish simplified approaches. It also discusses a Finite Element (FE) modelling approach is applied to the problem of residual mechanical performance of load-bearing fire-separating masonry walls after insulation failure. The features of the model are oriented to capture the cracking behaviour both under thermal and mechanical stress; this is performed by means of FE method analysis with DIANA 9.6 software, simulating a standard ISO 834 fire resistance test followed by a mechanical compressive failure test on each investigated type of wall. Insulation crisis is definitely the most frequent failure mode of brick masonry walls under the action of fire, including both solid and hollow units. Generally, hollow units provide a better thermal insu-lation within a normal temperature range, but show a worse fire behavior than solid units of the same external thickness.
