Mesoscale analysis of fracture process in brick masonry structures

This paper deals with mesoscale analysis of masonry structures, which involves fracture propagation in brick units as well as along the masonry joints. The brick-mortar interfaces are incorporated in standard finite elements by employing a constitutive law with embedded discontinuity. Macrocracks in bricks are modelled in a discrete way using the same methodology, without any a-priori assumptions regarding their orientation. The proposed …