An orthotropic damage model for masonry walls with consistent damage evolution laws

This research presents a constitutive model for the macro scale simulation of masonry structures. The model is containing an orthotropic plane stress assumption, which appears as an appropriate assumption for the in-plane analysis of masonry walls. The material model is based upon damage mechanics, split into tensile and compression parts. The novelty herewith is the consistent mapping of the damage evolution laws. Aim of this research is to develop a simple but accurate constitutive law, suitable to simulate large scale structures and buildings with reasonable computational costs. The developments are presented and compared with available literature examples from laboratory testings.