Issue 51

R. Landolfo et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 51 (2020) 517-533; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.51.39 517 Focussed on Fracture and Damage Detection in Masonry Structures Rigid block and finite element analysis of settlement-induced failure mechanisms in historic masonry walls Raffaele Landolfo, Raffaele Gagliardo, Lucrezia Cascini, Francesco Portioli Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy landolfo@unina.it , http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8695-669X raffaele.gagliardo@unina.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0625-0417 lucrezia.cascini@unina.it , http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3872-7371 fportiol@unina.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2711-3366 Marialaura Malena, Giovanni Tomaselli, Gianmarco de Felice Department of Engineering, University of Roma Tre, Italy marialaura.malena@uniroma3.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0011-672X giovanni.tomaselli@uniroma3.it, http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0917-0220 gianmarco.defelice@uniroma3.it http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4921-2955 A BSTRACT . The paper is related to the assessment of failure mechanisms of historic masonry structures suffering settlements induced by ground movements. Two numerical strategies are adopted in order to study the influence of the masonry shape and the settled zone on the cracking of masonry buildings: a discrete rigid block model and a continuous homogenized model. The first approach provides an estimate of the failure pattern of masonry based on the lower bound theorem of limit analysis. The second approach is formulated in the framework of multi-surface plasticity and is implemented in a finite element code for path-following non-linear analysis of masonry walls, described as continuous anisotropic plates. Several configurations of masonry walls under vertical settlement are investigated and the corresponding failure patterns resulting in local or global failure modes are presented. The results of the two models are compared and discussed in order to highlight pros and cons of discrete and continuous formulations in the prediction of settlement-induced damage of masonry structures. K EYWORDS . Masonry; Settlement; Rigid Blocks; Limit Analysis; Finite Element Analysis. Citation: Landolfo, R., Gagliardo, R., Cascini, L., Portioli, F., Malena, M., Tomaselli, G., de Felice, G., Rigid block and finite element analysis of settlement-induced failure mechanisms in historic masonry walls, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 51 (2020) 517-533. Received: 29.07.2019 Accepted: 12.12.2019 Published: 01.01.2020 Copyright: © 2020 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION istoric masonry structures have frequently suffered damages from ground movements and soil settlement. These phenomena have increased due to tunneling and underground parking excavation in urban area. Therefore, there is a need for developing assessment tools for the prediction of damage that should be based on a proper H