SENSITIVITY OF MECHANICAL MASONRY CHARACTERISTICS TO MODELING PROCEDURES

This paper investigates the sensitivity of the mechanical masonry characteristics to modeling procedures, in several conditions of texture and material elastic properties. In a linear elastic field, both rigorous homogenization procedures and micro-modeling finite element techniques, in the framework of compatible identification procedures, are applied and compared to each other. The main aim of such an approach is to verify the reliability of the proposed procedures, identifying their applicability limits to the great variety of real masonry constructions. Finally, the actual vertical and horizontal joint thicknesses are taken into account in the formulation, and the effect of different degradation levels of vertical joints is investigated by means of sensitivity analyses in order to reproduce the typical conditions of ancient masonry.