Study of the interface behaviour between fictile tubules bricks and mortar: Numerical and experimental analysis

This paper presents an investigation on the interaction between hollow clay bricks (caroselli) and mortar, aiming at obtaining frictional properties needed for a full description of the composite masonry material derived from these two constituents. A series of three-point bending tests is carried out on prism-shaped specimens representing typical arrangements of caroselli within mortar. Since no building code or guideline exists regulating this kind of tests, the specimens are built respecting the 1 4 ratio between the transversal dimension and the length of the prism requested for mortar specimens subjected to three-point bending tests. The frictional properties of the interaction between the two constitutive materials are then derived through a series of back analyses concerning four different hypotheses on the actual degree of transmission of tangential stresses between caroselli and mortar. The numerical analyses are performed with the commercial finite element software ABAQUS. The obtained results sustain the experimental findings.