Three Dimensional Dynamic Analysis of Crack Growth in Unreinforced Baked Brick Shear Wall

This paper presents the 3D dynamic crack growth simulation of unreinforced baked brick shear wall by using particle discretization scheme finite element method (PDS-FEM), which is efficient and capable of computing bifurcation/branching in cracking. The technology of fast modelling of bricks and cements by applying VB script in AUTOCAD is illustrated briefly. The shear wall including mortar joints is modelled in detail. The model parameters are calibrated by using standard static tests. Since the computation cost is high in structural level fracture analysis, parallel computation technology is employed. Finally, with two-phase failure criterion of mortar under multi-dimension stress state, the performance of low and high loading speed is compared. The numerical results verify the availability of dynamic fracture analysis of masonry structure by using PDS-FEM.