Avaliação numérica não linear de prismas e pequenas paredes compostos por blocos de concreto

Abstract

With the expansion of structural engineering and the emergence of different constructive systems in the construction industry each day, the structural engineer needs to incorporate numerical analysis as a usual work tool. Structural masonry has been stood out in Brazil for being mainly very economical, and for that reason still presents a great potential for growth. However, it should be considered that the knowledge about the behavior of this system, still need to be extensively studied in reaching similar levels of technological development that can be seen about conventional reinforced concrete structures. Therefore, the present work has as main objective the nonlinear numerical simulation of prisms and mini-walls of hollow concrete blocks, filled with grout or not, subject to an axial compression load. The prisms and mini-walls are modeled by finite elements using the software ABAQUS (SIMULIA, 2012), considering the non-linear behavior of the constituent materials (blocks, mortar, and grout) through the Plastic Damage Model and perfect contact between the different materials. So, the characteristics of both compression and tensile strengths are observed in the mortar joints, as well as the deformability, elasticity modulus, and various other properties of the constituent materials of the samples. Analysis results of the prisms are compared with the results obtained by Oliveira, whose values are very close. The behavior of the mini-walls is analyzed, trying to relate it to the analyzed prisms.