Study of the Arrangement Effect of Units on the Shear Strength Masonry Walls in Meso-Scale

Masonry is one of the oldest building materials which have been used in most heritage structures and new construction. In this study by using a meso-scale finite element model, the behavior of masonry walls is investigated under monotonic loading by Abaqus software. The most important factor in determining the behavior of masonry structures is discontinuity joints which are interface between unit and mortar. In most previous studies cohesive element is used for modeling of interface element. But in this study, by ignoring cohesive elements that represents the interface element between unit and mortar in masonry structures, it can be seen that while reducing the computational requirements, the results are in good agreement with experimental studies. Another important factor in the behavior of masonry walls is the arrangement of masonry units. In this study the overlapping effect of rows of units on the shear strength and failure mode of masonry walls have been investigated. As a result, it was observed that by increasing overlap, shear resistance of masonry walls increased.