Multilaminate Macromodel for Concrete Masonry: Formulation and Verification

A macromodel was developed to predict the in-plane behavior of concrete masonry. In this multilaminate model, the masonry assemblage is replaced by an equivalent material which consists of a homogenous medium intersected by two sets of planes of weakness along the head and bed joints. Additionally, two sets of reinforcement, normal and parallel to bed joints are used when modeling reinforced masonry. The macrobehavior of the equivalent material is determined by smearing the influence of these planes of weakness and reinforcement sets (when present) to determine the global behavior of the model. Different failure surfaces are defined for each masonry component. Based on the order in which different components reach their failure surface, redistribution of stresses occurs and different possible modes of failure are predicted. The proposed model’s prediction of the response of unreinforced and reinforced masonry is verified by comparison with the experimental results of masonry panels subjected to different biaxial stress conditions with different reinforcement ratios and loading angles.