Identification of material parameters for low bond strength masonry

•The conventional method of obtaining material parameters found to be problematic.•An alternative method of material parameter identification for masonry developed.•A 2D computational model for low bond strength masonry developed and validated.•A representative set of material parameters for low bond strength masonry identified.•The proposed method can be used for any non-linear numerical formulation.

This paper investigates the parameter estimation problem for masonry constitutive models and describes the development of a computational model for low bond strength masonry. The conventional method of obtaining material parameters from the results of small sample tests was thought to be problematic. Instead, material parameters were obtained from the results from the load testing of large clay brick low bond strength masonry wall panels in the laboratory. Initially, the panels were modeled computationally using UDEC software and an assumed set of material parameters. The differences between the results obtained experimentally and computationally were minimized using an optimization technique. The model was then used with the optimized parameters to predict the structural response of another wall panel that had been tested in the laboratory. Good correlation was obtained with the experimental results. The general procedure of the material parameter identification method and the numerical results are presented.