Use of Digital Image Correlation to Track Strain Evolution in Compressed Masonry Piers

摘要

In order to develop a constitutive material model and to verify its consistency when implemented in a computational code, it is necessary to understand the material and to carry out a comprehensive experimental analysis. This can be a challenging task in the case of composite materials and structures, such as masonry, when using conventional measurements. Strain gauges allow recording strains at a limited number of discrete points and do not provide sufficient amount of data, thus increasing the cost of the analysis. From that reason a full-field non-contact measurements, such as Digital Image Correlation (DIC), became very popular and valuable for the analysis of structures subjected to mechanical loading and precise detection of the onset of strain localization. The presented study deals with tracking the strain localization using DIC in the case of masonry piers loaded by the combination of bending and compression. In such a case the strain localizes into more compliant mortar joints while the complete collapse occurs when the masonry blocks fail to transfer tensile stress due to transversal expansion. The obtained data will be used for the validation of the finite element model to predict the behavior of masonry structures.