Advanced non-linear 3D FEM modeling of masonry structures for the preservation of cultural heritage

The Italian building stock is largely made up of masonry structures of different ages, having high social and cultural value. Such constructions constitute a heritage to be preserved. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate their safety level, making use of proper numerical models that should be sufficiently advanced, accurate and detailed, with a specific attention to the 3D modelling, but still computationally feasible. The development of such models presents several difficulties because of the peculiar behavior of these systems, which is very variable according to the observation scale. Therefore, the modelling and analysis of masonry structures is still an open question in the scientific world. In the literature, Concrete Damage Plasticity (CDP) is widely applied to the numerical modeling of this type of structures by means of FEM approaches. This is a material model originally developed for the analysis of concrete elements (reinforced and not). In this work, we report some applications of Concrete Damage Plasticity to problems on masonry structures at different scales.