An effective multiscale modeling approach for the failure analysis of masonry structures

This paper presents a novel concurrent multiscale modeling approach for the failure analysis of periodic masonry structures subjected to in-plane loadings. The proposed model adopts a domain decomposition scheme, which consists of decomposing the numerical model of the masonry into a set of fine- and coarse-scale sub-models that are solved simultaneously. In particular, the masonry is schematized in the coarser regions by homogeneous linear elastic macro-elements whose constitutive properties are achieved through a first-order computational homogenization strategy. On the other hand, inside the finer regions, the masonry is represented in detail as a heterogeneous material made of brick units and mortar joints. In such a region, the strain localization phenomena are effectively reproduced by adopting a fracture model based on the Phase Field Cohesive Zone Model (PF-CZM) formulation. An activation criterion is used to detect the portions of the computational domain potentially affected by damage phenomena, for which the numerical model performs a macro-to-micro scale transition. The validity of the proposed is assessed by performing multiscale numerical simulations on different benchmark cases whose results are compared with those achieved by performing direct numerical simulations.