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Analytical Modeling of Brick–Mortar Couplet

T. C. Nwofor

Abstract


This paper is a presentation of the finite element modeling of stress in a brick–mortar couplet. The brick–mortar couplet here serves as a meaningful substitute for a brick wall structure. In this work, the basic steps in derivation of the element stiffness matrix for a plane stress problem using the displacement approach are presented. The main purpose in the work is to verify the nodal displacements, which in turn would be used to detect the stress in each element, from which the general stress pattern for the overall structural model can be calculated. The process involves voluminous numerical work, and a computer code is used to do the analysis. The result in this work shows that the stresses obtained are directly affected by the value of the modulus of elasticity for mortar (Em) assuming that the modulus of elasticity for the brick region (EB) remains constant. Hence the usual failure theory formulated by previous investigators by considering a homogeneous structure is limited as it is well noticed that the variation of modulus of elasticity for the mortar region is a significant factor that should not be ignored. 


Keywords


brick, compression, masonry, mortar, strain, stress

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References


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