ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a study on the meso-scale numerical analysis for mechanical properties of masonry materials, and on the macro-scale numerical analysis for failure processes of masonry walls and masonry building structures under loads or earthquake actions, based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM). Masonry building structures have been widely constructed all over the world. In meso-scale analysis, masonry was discretized into rigid polyhedrons connected by dummy normal and shear springs. On the meso-sale, concrete perforated brick masonry was assumed to be a three-phase composite material, including concrete bricks, mortar joints and the interfacial phase. Masonry material in a wall will be in a compression-shear complex stress state, and therefore, the failure criterion can be derived by Mohr-Coulomb strength theory. Shear properties of masonry materials will be simulated on the meso-scale. DEM on the macro-scale will take the hysteretic constitution into account to get seismic properties of walls.
