A FE-Meshless Multiscale Approach for Masonry Materials

A FE-Meshless multiscale computational strategy for the analysis of running bond masonry is presented. The Meshless Method (MM) is adopted to solve the boundary value problem (BVP) at the mesoscopic level. The representative unit cell is composed by the aggregate and the surrounding joints, the former assumed to behave elastically while the latter are simulated as non-associated elastic-plastic zero-thickness interfaces with a softening response. Macroscopic localization of plastic bands is obtained performing a spectral analysis of the tangent stiffness matrix. Localized plastic bands are embedded into the quadrature points area of the macroscopic finite elements.