Effect of Block Irregular Arrangement on the in-Plane Mechanical Response of Masonry Walls

The study provides insight on the effect that irregular arrangements have on the in plane mechanical response of masonry structures. A stochastic pattern generator is first presented for the modelling of a significant set of masonry walls. The generator lies on geometric based parameters that are linked with the so-called masonry quality index to guarantee a representative and general sample of walls. Then, a first-order homogenization approach based on a continuum Finite Element model is adopted to retrieve the compression, tension, and shear homogenized in plane inelastic curves for each wall. The homogenization process is solved at the scale of the components and for different representative volume elements, whose dimensions are related to the maximum block size. To solve the boundary value problem, Dirichlet boundary conditions are assumed. Results allow us to understand the dispersion of the homogenized constitutive description of the material as a function of the masonry quality index.