Nonlinear Analysis of Unreinforced Masonry Walls under Blast Loading Using Mesoscale Partitioned Modeling

Abstract

This paper presents the application of an advanced modeling strategy for the nonlinear analysis of structures with unreinforced masonry (URM) components under blast loading. This approach enables the investigation of the nonlinear dynamic response of large structures with URM walls, accounting for the mechanical and geometrical characteristics of URM components, the coupling between the in-plane and out-of-plane response as well as the interaction between URM panels and the other parts of the considered structural system. According to the utilized strategy an URM wall is described by a parent structure, which consists of super-elements representing the partitioned subdomains, allowing effective parallelization of the nonlinear structural analysis simulation. Each partition is represented by a detailed 3D mesoscale model, which uses an advanced 2D nonlinear interface element that allows the representation of crack propagation in URM elements. Furthermore, the macroscale model considers only the partition boundaries of the mesoscale descriptions and specific macro-elements are introduced to reduce the number of freedoms leading to further enhance the computational savings. Several examples are presented in the paper to validate the proposed approach and to demonstrate its major computational benefits in simulating the response of structures with URM walls subjected to blast loading.