An orthotropic damage model for the analysis of masonry structures

This paper presents a numerical model for nonlinear analysis of masonry structural elements based on Continuum Damage Mechanics. The material is described at the macro-level, i.e. it is modeled as a homogeneous orthotropic continuum. The orthotropic behavior is simulated by means of an original methodology, resulting from the concept of mapped tensors from the anisotropic field to an auxiliary workspace. The application of this idea to strain-based Continuum Damage Models is innovative and leads to several computational benefits. The suitability of the model for representing the behavior of different types of brickwork masonry is shown via the simulation of experimental tests.