Nonlinear Analysis of Historical Masonry Walls: a Homogenisation Procedure and F.E.M. Models

The aim of the paper is to analyse the 2D static behaviour of a masonry wall belonging to the church of St. George, one of the most famous churches in Ferrara (Italy). A 3D survey of the wall was carried out by means of a 3D laser scanner which allowed the acquisition of the metric data of the external surface in terms of point clouds. These were then processed and transformed into a suitable 2D model on which a homogenised limit analysis was performed within a standard Finite Element Technique. Both upper and lower bound approaches are considered. Under the hypotheses of homogenisation, the mechanical properties of the constituent materials and the geometry of the elementary cell (joint thickness, brick dimensions) are taken into account only at a cell level. Consequently, well known automatic mesh generation procedures are applied to the 2D geometry and a meaningful example under vertical and horizontal loads is discussed in detail.