VERMELTFOORT, A.T. 1

1) Associate Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology, Structural masonry department, a.t.vermeltfoort@tue.nl

Masonry is point loaded when a longitudinal center strip is positioned between wall and floor to improve the floor wall interaction. The width of this strip is smaller than the thickness of the wall and so the contact surface area is smaller than the full wall section. Consequently, the contact stresses are higher and less uniformly distributed than with full contact.

This paper presents experimental results of specimens loaded via longitudinal center strips and compares these results with results of numerical simulations. The main focus was on the influence on load bearing capacity in relation to the position of the load on the strip. Stress and crack development in the floor-wall area are numerically established and compared with experimental findings. This paper also shows the possibility to randomly assign strength and elasticity properties to several parts of a volume and to simulate crack patterns. The continuous stress-strain model worked and showed promising results. Some aspects, like grid refinement and the detailed modeling of post peak behavior are to be addressed in sub sequent work.

Keywords: bearing strip, local contact, peak stresses, splitting strength, random material properties, numerical simulation.