37º IAHS World Congress on Housing: - Universidad de Cantabria

XXXVII <strong>IAHS</strong><strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> on HousingOctober 26 – 29, 2010, Santander, SpainCODE: 1061NUMERICAL MODELING FOR THE PREDICTION OF THEBUCKLING FAILURE OF MASONRY WALLSErnest Bernat 1 , Cristian Sandoval 2 , Lluís Gil 3 and Pere Roca 4Universitat Politècnica de Catalunyae-mail: 1 ernest.bernat@upc.edu; 2 cristian.sandoval@upc.edu; 3 lluis.gil@upc.edu, 4 pere.roca.fabregat@upc.eduKey words: masonry wall, buckling failure, eccentric load, micro-modeling, interface elementAbstractThe load-bearing capacity of unreinforced masonry walls subjected to in-plane concentric andeccentric vertical loading is examined. The aim of this research is to analyze and compareagainst available experimental results two alternative numerical approaches and theformulations proposed by two current masonry standards, namely Eurocode-6 (EC-6) andACI-530.For that purpose, two experimental campaigns adequately documented in the scientificliterature have been considered. These campaigns, including masonry walls of differentslenderness subjected to different loading eccentricity, and have been used to calibrate andvalidate the two numerical models considered. The models consists of 2D plane stress micromodelsusing interface elements to simulate the behavior of joints under tension. Given thenature of the problem, the analyses are performed taking into account both material andgeometric non-linearity.The comparison with experimental data shows that both models utilized produce verysatisfactory results. Conversely, the methods proposed by the masonry standards do notprovide a good estimation of the experimental results, with Eurocode-6 yielding the mostconservative results in most cases analyzed.37º <strong>IAHS</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Congress</strong> On Housing Science 372