A mixed lumped stress–displacement approach to the elastic problem of masonry walls

✍ Scribed by Fernando Fraternali

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 612 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0093-6413
• DOI: 10.1016/j.mechrescom.2011.03.008

✦ Synopsis

We present a novel approach to the elastic problem of masonry walls, which generalizes the lumped stress method presented in Fraternali (2001, 2007, 2010) and Fraternali et al. (2002). The generalization consists of a mixed lumped stress-displacement approach to the elastic problem of a wall that incorporates no-tension elements. Such an approach depends on the nodal values of the Airy stress function and the displacements of selected ("pivot") nodes. The latter coincide with inter-element and boundary nodes. The mixed lumped stress-displacement method can be conveniently coupled with standard finite element and boundary element approaches. Numerical applications dealing with recurrent structural elements are given, showing that such a method is able to capture some essential features of the actual response of masonry constructions.