Computational, analytical and experimental modeling of masonry structures

This dissertation addresses the existing gaps in knowledge pertaining to modeling of masonry structures subjected to extreme loadings, and presents a comprehensive study related to the development of constitutive material models, numerical procedures, and experimental validations.;Based on extensive literature review, most of the available material models and numerical procedures have been limited to capture either the in-plane or out-of-plane deformation of masonry walls. Similar to the development of numerical models, most of experimental studies conducted to-date also focused on the two dimensional behavior of walls or buildings, and very limited experimental data is available pertaining to the interaction of in-plane and out-of-plane behavior of masonry walls. To better understand the behavior of masonry structures, more robust modeling procedures are needed along with a well-documented experimental database to validate the new three-dimensional numerical procedures and the constitutive material models.;The proposed constitutive material models in this study are developed using implicit or explicit formulations and work seamlessly with commercial finite element software such as TNO DIANA and ABAQUS. The experimental validations clearly demonstrated the accuracy and robustness of the developed numerical procedures.