Numerical investigation on the residual behaviour of masonry walls damaged by fire exposure

The paper proposes a numerical approach to the problem of residual mechanical performance of load-bearing fire-separating masonry walls, via FE modelling. The mechanical features of the model are oriented to capture the cracking behaviour under both thermal and mechanical stress; by doing so, the liability of numerical outcomes could be assessed by comparison to experimental information already obtained. The numerical analysis is performed by means of FEM analysis with DIANA 9.4.4 software, simulating the experimental heating cycle followed by a mechanical ‘cold’ compressive failure test. The comparison of numerical outcomes to available experimental information allows to judge the good reliability of the numerical approach in reproducing the residual behaviour of a masonry wall after fire exposure; this would especially address the issues of physical modelling and the difficulties of relating the behaviour of small samples to real-size walls.