Out-of-Plane Performance Based on Homogenization & Micromechanics Approach

For analyzing and assessing the seismic vulnerability of masonry buildings, it is necessary to specify the main structural properties of walls such as stiffness, ultimate load bearing capacity, etc. Although micro modeling is essential in a brick wall, it is difficult and approximately impractical due to the pattern of arrangement of bricks and bed and head joints of mortar and their large quantity. In macro modeling, masonry materials are replaced with an equivalent homogeneous material. In the present research, a set of analytical equations was established for determining the mechanical properties of this equivalent homogeneous material. The results of the proposed method for homogenization of unreinforced brick walls were compared with those of detailed modeling in different situations of solid walls under in-plane loading, and it was found that this method provides suitable accuracy in estimation of the wall linear properties such as stiffness and the wall nonlinear properties such as ultimate strength. Additionally, this proposed modeling method is simple and quick and needs very little input data.