Simulation on collapse process and analysis of anti-collapse influencing factors for masonry structure under earthquake

It has been obvious that masonry structures are prone to collapse in strong earthquakes. Simulating collapse process and analyzing anti-collapse influencing factors for masonry structure is significant. The explicit dynamic FE software ANSYS/LS-DYNA was adopted to simulate collapse process. Meanwhile, the effects of tie-column, mortar strength, block density, the rate of holes, the stiffness ratio of window wall to spandrel wall on anti-collapse performance of masonry structure were analyzed. The results show that the corners of windows and doors will be damaged at first where the stress concentration occurs under the action of earthquake; deformation capacity and integrity of masonry structure can be improved by tie-columns; to some extent, the higher the strength of mortar, the harder the collapse of structure; the structure is easy to collapse while the ratio of holes on the walls becomes bigger and bigger. For the blocks with certain strength, the smaller the density, the better the seismic capacity. When the stiffness ratio of window wall to spandrel wall is less than 1.0, the window wall will failure firstly and the window wall destruction will lead to faster structure collapse.