A Cohesive Element Model For Mixed Mode Loading With Frictional Contact Capability 2013 International Journal For Numerical Methods in Engineering

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR NUMERICAL METHODS IN ENGINEERING
Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2013; 93:510526

Published online 31 July 2012 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/nme.4398
A cohesive element model for mixed mode loading with frictional
contact capability
Leonardo Snozzi and Jean-Franois Molinari
*
,
cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering
(ENAC), Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory (LSMS), Lausanne, Switzerland
SUMMARY
We present a model that combines interface debonding and frictional contact. The onset of fracture is
explicitly modeled using the well-known cohesive approach. Whereas the debonding process is controlled
by a new extrinsic traction separation law, which accounts for mode mixity, and yields two separate values
for energy dissipation in mode I and mode II loading, the impenetrability condition is enforced with a contact
algorithm. We resort to the classical law of unilateral contact and Coulomb friction. The contact algorithm
is coupled together to the cohesive approach in order to have a continuous transition from crack nucleation
to the pure frictional state after complete decohesion. We validate our model by simulating a shear test on
a masonry wallette and by reproducing an experimental test on a masonry wall loaded in compression and
shear. Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Received 29 November 2011; Revised 15 May 2012; Accepted 1 July 2012
KEY WORDS: cohesive zone model; dynamic fracture; frictional contact; mixed mode loading; masonry
wallette; numerical methods
1. INTRODUCTION
A fundamental understanding of the failure of heterogeneous brittle materials, such as concrete,
needs a careful treatment of both microcracking and frictional contact mechanisms. Indeed, fracture
of such materials involves the opening of local microcracks, which may propagate, coalesce, and
subsequently enter into contact. The contacting rough surfaces play an important role in the amount
of dissipated frictional energy, inuencing the structural strength.
One of the most popular approaches, to model the onset of fracture, is to use cohesive zone
models. This method relates the displacement jumps at the crack tip with tractions. The approach
has been introduced by Dugdale [1] and Barenblatt [2] in the 1960s. The model describes fracture
as a separation process, which occurs at the crack tip. The debonding is assumed to be conned
in a small region of material called the cohesive zone, which represents the region where atomistic
separation occurs. A constitutive relationship called traction separation law (TSL) describes the
decohesion process. Several works have had recourse to this method (among them, [36], and more
recently, [79]).
The transition from debonding to sliding frictional contact is an often overlooked (but key)
dissipative mechanism in cohesive zone approaches. One of the rst attempts combining both
fracture and frictional contact phenomena has been introduced by Tvergaard [10]. In this approach,
the response of the surface is assumed to be frictionless until complete debonding of the cohesive
zone has occurred. Afterwards, other authors considered the onset of friction to start in conjunc-
tion with the onset of fracture, for instance, by coupling friction to decohesion [11, 12] or to
*Correspondence to: Jean-Franois Molinari, Btiment GC - A2, Station 18, CH 1015-Lausanne, Switzerland.
E-mail: jean-francois.molinari@ep.ch
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A COHESIVE ZONE MODEL FOR MIXED MODE LOADING WITH FRICTIONAL CONTACT 511
adhesion [13, 14]. More recent works on this topic include those on ber pullout/pushout
(e.g., [1519]) and applications to structural engineering (e.g., plane and reinforced concrete by
Cervenka et al [20] and Raous et al. [21] and masonry walls by Alfano and Sacco [22], Sacco and
Toti [23], Fouchal et al. [24], and Koutromanos and Shing [25]) and to brittle materials [26].
The aim of this paper is to present a new approach coupling cohesive zone modeling, to represent
damage, and a contact algorithm, for enforcing the impenetrability condition, in a 2D nite element
framework. The key features of the model are the following:
v A novel initially rigid extrinsic TSL, which enables us to dene two separate values for the
dissipated fracture energy in modes I and II. This formulation extends the work of van den
Bosch et al. [27], who developed such a model for TSL with an initial elasticity (intrinsic
approach); such intrinsic cohesive laws are known to alter the elastic properties of the
specimen [28].
v A continuous transition from decohesion to the pure frictional state. Friction and fracture
occur simultaneously when a crack is forming under compression, avoiding numerical insta-
bilities due to a possible stress jump when transitioning from complete debonding to pure
frictional sliding.
v An explicit dynamics analysis (second-order explicit version of the popular Newmark method
[29]). This approach is chosen to avoid convergence problems, which might arise when multiple
cracks are propagating and coalesce, offering therefore a suitable and simpler alternative
compared with a classical implicit scheme.
Section 2 describes the developed mixed mode cohesive approach and applies the proposed TSL to a
benchmark [27]. In Section 3, the adopted frictional contact enforcement algorithm is reported. The
model has been successfully implemented in a nite element program and validated by experimental
data at the material level and the structural level.
Section 4 validates the model by comparing the numerical results to experimental data at the
mesolevel and structural level. The rst application consists of a shear test experiment on masonry
wallettes (a conventional test in order to determine the shear resistance of joints between bricks),
whereas the second application simulates a masonry wall loaded in compression and shear. Finally,
concluding remarks are reported in Section 5.
2. ADOPTED TRACTION SEPARATION LAW
2.1. Cohesive zone models
Within the cohesive zone approach, the damage and the discontinuity in the displacement eld are
assumed to be concentrated at the crack interfaces. The constitutive relationship, which relates the
traction acting on the separating surfaces to the relative opening displacement vector (), is called
the TSL:
T =T() (1)
Usually, the TSL is related to a potential (), which represents the stored fracture energy for a spe-
cic interface. Because of this formulation, it is possible to obtain the components of the traction
vector (T) simply by differentiating the potential with respect to the opening displacement vector:
T =
d
d
(2)
In the computational framework, the cohesive zone is represented by interface elements (in which
the TSL is implemented). These elements, called cohesive elements, are placed at the boundaries
between bulk elements.
One can distinguish between two main categories of TSL depending on the response of the inter-
face before the softening behavior. With the extrinsic approach (see, for instance, [5]), which is
used in this work, the surface shows only a softening behavior (the response of the surface prior
crack initiation is assumed to be rigid), whereas, with the intrinsic approach (see, for instance, [3]),
Copyright 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 2013; 93:510526
DOI: 10.1002/nme
512 L. SNOZZI AND J.-F. MOLINARI
the TSL exhibits generally an initial linear elastic behavior prior to softening, which requires
cohesive elements to be present from the beginning of the simulation. This leads to an articial
compliance of the uncracked body, which is avoided with the extrinsic approach where cohesive
elements are inserted dynamically.
2.2. CamachoOrtiz linear irreversible cohesive law
One of the most popular TSLs for the extrinsic approach was proposed by Camacho and Ortiz
[5] in 2D (and Pandoli and Ortiz [30] in 3D). There, the cohesive law is a linear decreasing
function (depicted in Figure 1) of the effective opening displacements and is derived from a free
potential energy.
() =
1
2
o
c

(3)
where o
c
represents the local material strength and
c
represents the effective relative displace-
ment beyond which complete decohesion occurs. The potential is assumed to depend not directly
on the relative displacement vector, , but on an effective scalar displacement, which has the
following form:
=
q
2
^
2
t
^
2
n
(4)
where ^
n
and ^
t
represent the normal and the tangential separation over the surface with unit
outward normal n and unit tangential vector t, respectively. The parameter accounts for the cou-
pling between normal and tangential displacement. The derivation of the free potential energy with
respect to the opening displacement leads to the cohesive traction (2D):
T =
d
d
=
T
(
2
^
t
t ^
n
n) (5)
This traction in case of crack opening is given by the following:
T(,
max
) =o
c
for =
max
(6)
where
max
stores the maximal effective opening displacement attained. On the other hand, for
crack closure or reopening ( smaller than
max
), the functional form is assumed to have the
following form:
T(,
max
) =
T
max
max
for <
max
(7)
where T
max
is the value of the effective traction when is equal to
max
. Moreover,
max
also
accounts for the irreversibility of the law allowing successive loading/unloading steps.
Note that the denition of o
c
and
c
implicitly establish the existence of an effective fracture
energy G
c
, which corresponds to the area under the curve of Figure 1.
Figure 1. CamachoOrtiz linear decreasing cohesive law [5].
DOI: 10.1002/nme
Figure 2. Cohesive zone loaded with two different paths leading potentially to two distinct values of
dissipated energy.
2.3. Modied traction separation law for mixed mode loading
Because the CamachoOrtiz TSL is based on a potential, it is clear that the dissipated fracture energy
for a growing crack does not depend on the opening path. However, as reported in [27] by van den
Bosch et al., it can be argued that the dissipated fracture energy should be path dependent, because
of microstructural details such as interface roughness that cannot be depicted without an extremely
ne discretization.
Hence, the TSL should allow for independent values of the dissipated energy depending on the
loading path as depicted in Figure 2. We propose an alternative cohesive law based on the clas-
sical model of Camacho and Ortiz by relaxing the hypothesis of a well-dened energy potential
(as previously done in [27] but for the intrinsic cohesive model of Xu and Needleman [3]). We have
preferred this option to a pseudo-potential formulation (for instance, that proposed in [31]) because
of its ease of formulation. This results in a law that is not anymore bounded by a free potential
energy (i.e., only the tractions are dened). A new independent parameter k, which enables us to
dene the ratio between G
c,I
and G
c,II
, is introduced.
k =
G
c,II
G
c,I
(8)
We set the work of separation for a cohesive zone opened completely under mode I (G
c,I
) to cor-
respond to the one computed with the CamachoOrtiz model (G
c
). Therefore, the cohesive normal
traction envelop has, in this case, an identical shape as in the CamachoOrtiz TSL. Conversely,
because the introduced parameter, k, is linked with the tangential direction, the adjustment inu-
ences the shapes of the tractions, when the opening does not occur in pure normal direction. Our
model yields the following equation for the cohesive tractions in case of crack opening:
T =
2
k
^
t
t ^
n
n
o
c
(9)
The effective opening displacement, previously dened in Equation (4), needs to be redened
as follows:
=
r
2
k
2
^
2
t
^
2
n
(10)
Normal and tangential tractions are shown in Figure 3 as functions of the normalized normal and
tangential opening displacements. As postulated in [5], damage is considered to be an irreversible
process. Unloading or reloading takes place when <
max
. In this case, the tractions are calculated
with the following:
T
n
=^
n
o
c
max
1

max
(11)
T
t
=

2
k
^
t
o
c
max
1

max
(12)
With these equations, the tractions are linearly interpolated between the origin and the tractions at
which the opening will be equal to the maximal attained effective opening displacement in the new
loading direction.
DOI: 10.1002/nme
(a) (b)
Figure 3. Cohesive traction in (a) normal direction and (b) tangential direction (with > 1).
1
30 60 90
(b) (a)
Figure 4. (a) Cohesive zone loaded under a constant angle as in [27] and (b) resulting dissipated work as
function of the loading angle expressed in units of G
c,I
(with k > 1).
2.3.1. Work of separation under combined normal shear loading. If k is set equal to one, the trac-
tions and the dissipated energy match with those of the CamachoOrtiz TSL, whereas, if k is set
different to one, the dissipated fracture energy becomes path dependent and therefore does not cor-
respond for every loading path to the mode-independent fracture toughness G
c
. This energy can be
computed by integrating the tractions over the path. In order to depict the mode-dependent behav-
ior of the proposed TSL and to verify our model, we repeat the two different patch tests reported
in [27]. In this previous work, it was demonstrated that the classical XuNeedleman law failed
these patch tests, showing some unphysical/unexpected behavior in the computed amount of sep-
aration work. The rst one consists in loading a surface monotonically with an imposed constant
loading angle until complete separation occurs (Figure 4(a); i.e., proportionality between tangential
and normal displacements). On the other hand, in the second case, the cohesive zone is loaded
rst in one direction up to a maximal value and then broken completely in the other direction
(non-proportional loading).
For a separation associated with a loading angle , the work of separation can be expressed as
W
tot
=
Z

n,c
0
T
n
() d^
n
Z

t,c
0
T
t
() d^
t
(13)
DOI: 10.1002/nme
where ^
n,c
and ^
t,c
represent the opening displacement values in normal and tangential direc-
tions at which complete separation occurs. The evolution of W
tot
in respect to the loading angle is
depicted in Figure 4(b). The graph has been normalized by G
c,I
. Because we have chosen a higher
value of the fracture energy in mode II, the dissipated fracture energy increases monotonically by a
factor of k between the two extremes 0 and 90, which correspond to the fracture energy for mode I
and mode II, respectively. Indeed, increasing the angle is equivalent to increasing the work done by
the tangential traction (W
t
) and decreasing the portion corresponding to the normal traction (W
n
).
For the nonproportional loading, the surface is opened in the rst case up to a maximal normal
displacement ^
n,max
and then broken completely in shear (Figure 5(a)). Conversely, in the second
case, the zone is loaded rst in tangential direction (up to the value ^
t,max
) and then separated in
normal direction until complete separation occurs (Figure 5(b)).
The dissipated fracture energy for cases 1 and 2 can be expressed with
W
tot
=
Z

n,max
0
T
n
(^
n
, ^
t
=0)d^
n
Z

c,t
0
T
t
(^
n
=^
n,max
, ^
t
)d^
t
(14)
W
tot
=
Z

t,max
0
T
t
(^
n
=0, ^
t
)d^
t
Z

c,n
0
T
n
(^
n
, ^
t
=^
t,max
)d^
t
(15)
The results of the rst case are reported in Figure 6(a). W
tot
is equal to G
c,I
if ^
n,max
is set equal
c
and corresponds to G
c,II
if ^
n,max
is equal to zero. An analogous behavior can be observed in
the second case (Figure 6(b)). In both loading cases, it is possible to recognize that the transition of
the dissipated fracture energy as function of the maximal rst opening is smooth and does not show
any kink or unphysical oscillation.
(a) (b)
Figure 5. Interface nonproportionally loaded: (a) rst in normal direction until ^
n,max
and then broken in
shear and (b) rst in tangential direction until ^
t,max
and then broken in normal direction as in [27].
1
0.5 1
(a) (b)
0.5 1
1
Figure 6. Work of separation when loading rst in (a) normal direction and in (b) tangential direction,
respectively, expressed in units of G
c,I
(with k > 1).
DOI: 10.1002/nme
3. CONTACT ENFORCEMENT
When a crack is growing under compressive shear loading, we enforce the impenetrability condition
by a masterslave explicit contact algorithm. Because our goal is to be able to deal with multiple
cracking, which causes numerous asperities to enter into contact, we have preferred explicit contact
enforcement rather than a more traditional static or implicit dynamic formulation. Among this sec-
ond class of methods, augmented Lagrangian multipliers (for instance, [32]) and penalty methods
(for instance, [33]) have been widely used. The rst class is able to provide an accurate constrain
enforcement circumventing ill-conditioning. Nevertheless, the size of the problems might be lim-
ited because of the implicit system of equations that one needs to solve, which can rapidly increase
the computational cost with increasing system size. On the other hand, penalty methods allow a
little interpenetration of the contacting surfaces, which is inversely proportional to the value of the
penalty parameters. Nevertheless, a high value of these parameters can produce an ill-conditioned
system of equations, requiring a high number of iterations and leading to convergence problems.
Moreover, another drawback, in the explicit dynamic version of this method, is that the critical time
step decreases with increasing stiffness penalty parameter.
Thereby, in this work, we have decided to address the aforementioned difculties enforcing
the impenetrability constrain by using a ballistic method called decomposition contact response
developed by Cirak and West [34]. This method is based on the conservation of linear and angu-
lar momentum while the impenetrability condition is guaranteed by acting on the displacements
directly, for example, by projecting the impacting nodes on the penetrated surface. Therefore, the
purpose of the method is not to resolve the impact time exactly for every node as depicted in
Figure 7(a) but with an approximation as illustrated in Figure 7(b). Thus, nodes, which are allowed to
penetrate the master surface within the predictor

t
, must subsequently be projected back within

the same time step

t
C
i
. The equations governing the impact (beside the projection of the slave
nodes on the master surfaces) are
p
t
C
i
p
t
i
=zV
x
g
x
t
C
i
(16)
p
T
M
1
p|
t
C
i
t
i
=0 (17)
where p = M x represents the momentum vector of slave and master nodes (with M being the
mass matrix, which has the size 6 6 for edge-to-node contact), g is the gap function, and z a
scalar parameter. The approach modies only the post-impact velocities of the contacting nodes
involved in contact (components in direction of the gap gradient). A closed form for the post impact
velocities can be derived using momentum decomposition. We will report here the main equations
for computing the momentum after collision (for a detailed derivation, see [34]). First, velocities
of all impacting nodes need to be decomposed into their normal (subscript n) and tangential
(subscript t) components giving
x = x
n
x
t
(18)
(a) (b)
Figure 7. (a) Impact time resolved exactly and (b) approximation of the decomposition contact response.
DOI: 10.1002/nme
where the normal x
n
components are dened as
x
n
=
(Vg)
T
x
(Vg)
T
M
1
Vg
M
1
Vg (19)
With the aforementioned equation, one can compute the normal components of the velocity before
impact of the contacting triplets (node-to-segment approach). The normal components of the
velocity after impact can be thus corrected as follows:
x
C
n
= x
n
x
n
(1 c
res
) (20)
where c
res
represents the coefcient of restitution, which can range between 0 (completely inelastic
contact) and 1 (perfectly elastic contact), and the superscripts and denote quantities before
and after projection, respectively (in the application presented in this paper, we choose c
res
=0).
3.1. Frictional impact
A simple Coulomb friction law can be included by computing the relative motion between the
contacting entities. To this end, the velocity needs to be decomposed into xed and nonxed
components:
x = x
nonx
x
x
(21)
where only the nonxed components x
nonx
lead to a relative motion between the bodies. In order
to derive the nonxed component of the velocity, a separation vector between two impacting points
needs to be dened:
h =x
L
x
R
(22)
where x
L
and x
R
stand for the positions of the two impacting points. Consequently, the nonxed
components can be obtained as follows:
x
nonx
=M
1
(Vh)
T
(Vh) x
(Vh)M
1
(Vh)
T
(23)
Because the nonxed velocity is the resultant between motion leading to interpenetration ( x
n
) and
relative tangential displacement (sliding), the slide components are given by
x
slide
= x
nonx
x
n
(24)
According to the Coulomb model, one can compute the slip velocity as follows:
j
[ x
T
n
M
1
x
n
[
[ x
T
slide
M
1
x
slide
[
x
slide
(25)
In order to account for stickslip, the authors [34] suggested to bound the maximal frictional
impulse, which can be delivered during sliding with the minimum value between Equations (24)
and (25) (the stick and slip velocity, respectively):
x
C
t
= x
t
min
1, j
[ x
T
n
M
1
x
n
[
[ x
T
slide
M
1
x
slide
[
x
slide
(26)
If the relative motion between two contacting bodies becomes too small, Equation (26) will cause
most of the nodes to get into stick, leading consequently to an insufcient frictional force between
the sliding bodies. Therefore, the limitation criterion of Equation (26) has been removed, allowing
bigger correction in the tangential quantity of motion within the predictor. Nevertheless, this can
DOI: 10.1002/nme
produce too large values in the delivered frictional impulse. Thus, the relative motion between the
sliding nodes needs to be veried after Newmarks corrector and, if necessary, corrected.
3.2. Coupling with cohesive zone model
As already mentioned before, the contact algorithm is coupled in parallel with the TSL. This implies
that friction and fracture occur simultaneously in the cohesive zone when a crack is growing under
compression. A rst possibility, as illustrated in Figure 8, is to assume a full onset of friction at the
beginning of decohesion. This superimposition combined with the extrinsic approach gives a very
steep (rigid) initial behavior followed by the softening branch. Therefore, in order to reproduce the
experimental interfacial behavior, a different transition from the onset of fracture to pure frictional
sliding has been chosen (note that the accuracy of the transition might depend on the level of obser-
vation and material). Our second approach (depicted in Figure 9) considers a progressive shift to
friction during debonding. When the cohesive zone starts to damage, friction does not act on the
interface, but it raises gradually with increasing decohesion, giving a soft transition from debonding
Figure 8. Shear stresstangential opening displacement relationship for a growing crack in mode II with full
onset of friction.
Figure 9. Adopted shear stresstangential opening displacement relationship for a growing crack in mode II
with increasing frictional capability.
DOI: 10.1002/nme
to the pure frictional stage. The function that regulates the increase in the friction force depends on
the amount of damage experienced by the cohesive zone and is given by the following:
1
q
(27)
where the exponent q has been set in this work to 4. Note that the chosen quartic transition func-
tion implies a relatively high dissipation of frictional energy already during the decohesion process
(and that the peak shear strength/traction remains essentially inuenced by both the cohesive
strength and the amount of applied compressive force). To summarize, as depicted in Figure 9,
for a growing crack in mode II, the cohesive elements are inserted if the tangential stresses exceed
o
c
. A fracture energy corresponding to kG
c
multiplied by the length of the cohesive zone will
have been dissipated when the tangential opening (^
t
) attains the critical opening value (k
c
,).
During this process, the cohesive zone experiences a continuous transition from debonding to pure
frictional sliding.
4. NUMERICAL VALIDATION
As mentioned in Section 1, in order to validate our numerical model, we have selected two prob-
lems related to the masonry engineering eld. The rst application is a simple and representative
experiment of a masonry wallette, which has been used to identify the interfaces parameters. These
parameters have then been used to predict the behavior of a masonry wall loaded in compression
and shear.
4.1. Masonry wallette
Masonry is one of the most widely used construction materials in civil engineering around the world.
Therefore, different tests have been designed in order to extract the properties of its components.
Among these, a common experiment in order to determine the ultimate shear strength of the mortar
joints is a shear test of a masonry wallette, which consists of three bricks linked with two mortar
joints (shear triplet) as depicted in Figure 10(a). For our paper, we refer to the experimental data
obtained by Beyer et al. [35, 36].
Experimentally, the masonry wallettes have been tested on a loading machine. During the exper-
iment, the inner brick is supported at the upper edge with two rigid blocks, whereas the shear load
is introduced on the lower edge of the two outer bricks. Horizontal rods are responsible for the
horizontal axial force, which guarantees constant normal stress acting on the mortar joints during
the shearing.
The virtual experimental setup chosen for the numerical test consists in half of the symmetric
part of the experimental setup and is drawn in Figure 10(b) with the adopted nite element mesh.
(a) (b)
Figure 10. (a) Experimental test setup of the wallette (courtesy of Beyer [35, 36]) and (b) corresponding
nite element mesh, corresponding to one half of the experimental setup (all dimensions in millimeter).
DOI: 10.1002/nme
The mesh has been chosen ne enough in order to achieve numerical convergence leading to an ele-
ment size of about 5 mm (element edge) at the interbrick boundary. The boundary conditions for the
upper and lower edges have been simplied by extending the length for load introduction and sup-
port to the edge length. It should be pointed out that this change in the boundary condition has not
a signicant inuence on the global behavior of the wallette (in terms of shear stressdisplacement
relationship). The two bricks have been modeled explicitly, whereas the mortar layer and the two
interfaces between mortar and bricks are represented by means of a line of dynamically inserted
elements with the proposed cohesive frictional capability.
Elastic constitutive behavior is assumed for the bricks elements. The elastic material parameters
are reported in Table I (and have been taken from [35] for the density and Youngs modulus and
from [22] for the Poisson ratio). The cohesive parameters (Table II) for the interfacial transition
zone between bricks have been tted, in order to achieve a good agreement between the numerical
and experimental sheardisplacement relationship. The value for the critical stress is of the same
order as the values for the strength of the joints reported in [37, 38], whereas the values for the frac-
ture energies are somewhat higher than the values suggested in these two references but on the same
order of magnitude as the ones given in [39]. Moreover, k has been set in order to represent the usual
ratio between the fracture energies in modes II and I in masonry engineering. The tting has been
achieved by varying the value of the cohesive strength and dissipated fracture energy. As depicted
in Figure 11(a), larger values of o
c
increase the peak shear resistance, whereas larger values of G
c,I
,
as depicted in Figure 11(b), shift the transition to the pure frictional state towards higher values
of the brick displacement. One can notice from Table II that only cohesive values for the inter-
face between mortar and brick are given. Indeed, as reported earlier, the propagation of cracks can
Table I. Material properties.
Material E (Gpa) v () j (kg/m
3
)
Brick 14.0 0.15 940
Table II. Cohesive properties for interface elements.
Interface o
c,I
(MPa) G
c,I
(J/m
2
) o
c,II
(MPa) G
c,II
(J/m
2
) j
Brickmortar 0.2 0.3 0.4 75 125 200 o
c,I
6 G
c,I
0.77
Those in bold are assumed values for the shear test.
0 2 4
0
0.6
0.4
0.2
[
M
P
a
]
[mm]
= 0.25 MPa
= 0.3 MPa
= 0.35 MPa
(a)
0 2 4
0
[
M
P
a
]
[mm]
= 75 J/m
2
= 125 J/m
2
= 200 J/m
2
0.6
0.4
0.2
(b)
Figure 11. Shear stress plotted against shear displacement: (a) for different values of o
c
(G
c,I
kept constant)
and (b) for different values of G
c,I
(o
c
kept constant).
DOI: 10.1002/nme
occur only at the interelement boundaries between brick and mortar, whereas bricks are assumed
to remain uncracked. Indeed, we have not adopted a fully mesoscale representation of masonry
(as, for instance, in [39]), and all the cracking is concentrated at the straight interfaces.
In order to have a smoother transition from uncracked to cracked regime, variations in the
value of the critical stresses following a normal distribution (with standard deviation in the order
of 0.05 MPa) have been adopted. Moreover, in order to reduce oscillation during sliding and to
reduce the amount of energy injected in the system (which is due to the projection of the slave
nodes), material damping has been adopted. Figure 12 shows the inuence of damping on the
computed stressdisplacement relationship and on the amount of kinetic energy in the specimen
for two different Rayleigh damping ratios [40]. As illustrated in Figure 12(b), the regularization
through damping allows to maintain the right level of kinetic energy (insufcient damping leads to
an increase of energy in the system and to oscillations in the stress displacement curve). For this
application, a damping ratio of 7% has been used.
As in the testing machine, the specimen has been loaded with an imposed displacement with a
constant normal pressure level of 0.4 MPa. The outer brick has been displaced at a constant initial
velocity () of 0.025 m/s in order to avoid rate effects (similar to [41]). Nevertheless, loading veloc-
ities beyond 0.05 m/s increase the peak shear stress. Similarly to the experiments, the shearing has
been interrupted after a path of approximately 10 mm.
The comparison of the shear stressdisplacement relationship between experiments and simula-
tion is illustrated in Figure 13. The stress (,-axis) in the gure is obtained by dividing the shear
force acting on the brick by the area of the interface between mortar and brick.
(a) (b)
Figure 12. Regularization of damping on (a) the stressdisplacement curve and (b) the amount of kinetic
energy in the system.
0 10 2 4 6 8
0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
[
M
P
a
]
[mm]
v = 0,025 ms
-1
Beyer et al.
Figure 13. Shear stress plotted against shear displacement: comparison between experimental envelope
[35, 36] (dotted gray area) and simulation (continuous red line).
DOI: 10.1002/nme
In general, the experimental and numerical curves are in good agreement. The transition to the
pure frictional regime is smooth, and the model is able to depict friction correctly. This demon-
strates the robustness of our frictional cohesive model. The curved shape of the numerical shear
displacement relationship at the initial stage of loading can be traced back to the assumed transient
coupling between decohesion and friction.
4.2. Masonry wall
The second selected application for the interface model is the simulation of a masonry wall loaded
in shear and compression under low and moderate strain rates. For this virtual experiment, we
have chosen to reproduce one test unit of the experimental test program conducted by Ganz and
Thrlimann [42]. The geometry of the wall is represented in Figure 14. The specimen is 3.6 m wide
and 2 m high (which represents approximately 80% of a full-scale wall in a building). Experimen-
tally, each test unit has been loaded rst with a normal compressive force (kept constant during the
shearing) and then displaced horizontally under a quasistatic regime. The bricks that compose the
wall are hollow clay bricks 29 cm long, 19 cm high, and 15 cm thick, and thus similar to the bricks
of the previous application. Because no experimental data of the interface properties were available,
we have used the parameters calibrated for the rst application.
The mesh adopted for the virtual experimental setup is illustrated in Figure 15. The bricks
have been modeled explicitly, whereas the interfacial transition zone is represented (as before) by
dynamically inserted elements with the proposed cohesive frictional capability. Because cohesive
insertion is allowed only at the interfaces between bricks, bricks are assumed to remain uncracked
(this assumption can be considered adequate for low-to-moderate values of the horizontal wall dis-
placement, because little crushing of the bricks is observed experimentally). The bricks are modeled
with elastic elements, and their material properties are the same as those reported in Table I except
for the density that has been set to 855 kg/m
3
. The cohesive parameters of the interfaces are reported
in Table II.
The specimen has been loaded rst with a vertical force of 415 kN. Little uctuations in the
amount of vertical displacement of the nodes located on the top edge have been allowed in order
to maintain a constant level of compression during the shearing test. The shearing has been applied
to the top edge of the wall prescribing a displacement u. The test has been performed at two load-
ing velocities (): a low one (0.05 m/s), which can be considered representative of a quasistatic
regime, and a moderate one (0.5 m/s) in order to show the rate-dependent response of the tested unit.
415 kN
3600
2
0
0
0
415 kN
Figure 14. Experimental setup of the masonry wall tested in [42] (all dimensions in millimeter).
DOI: 10.1002/nme
Figure 15. Adopted nite element mesh.
0 20 5 10 15
0
300
200
100
[
k
N
]
[mm]
v = 0.05 ms
-1
v = 0.5 ms
-1
Ganz and Thrlimann
Figure 16. Comparison of the horizontal forcedisplacement curves for the masonry wall between the nite
element analysis (continuous red line and dotted blue line) and the experimental results (dashed gray line)
of Ganz and Thrlimann [42].
(a) (b)
Figure 17. Deformed mesh conguration (at u =14.5 mm) for shear velocity of (a) 0.05 m/s and (b) 0.5 m/s
(magnication factor 25).
The damping ratio has been set to 0.75%. The numerically computed and the experimentally
recorded forcedisplacement curves are compared in Figure 16. One can remark that the model
can successfully reproduce the experimental behavior. Although the initial response of the wall is
stiffer than the experimental one (probably because of the virtual setup and the assumed interface
DOI: 10.1002/nme
parameters), the peak strength and the corresponding displacement at peak strength almost match
the values reported by Ganz and Thrlimann. As depicted in the gure, the response of the wall
depends on the amount of horizontal velocity. An increasing velocity causes a delay in the dissipa-
tion of cohesive energy and a more diffuse cracking network that produces an overall increase in
strength. The crack pattern for the two different loading velocities is depicted in Figure 17. One can
notice that the higher applied velocity causes a higher number of cracks perpendicular to the load-
ing direction. The bigger amount of cracks is related to the intrinsic opening time of the cohesive
zone and is responsible for the increase in strength, which is obtained despite the rate-insensitive
constitutive law used to model the interfacial behavior.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a new model that combines interface debonding and frictional contact is presented.
The model is implemented in a 2D nite element framework within explicit dynamics and allows
for large relative displacements.
The debonding process is controlled by a TSL based on the popular linear extrinsic irreversible
law proposed by Camacho and Ortiz [5]. The law has been modied in order to account for
path-dependent behavior and therefore to introduce a mode-dependent fracture energy. The impene-
trability condition is enforced by the decomposition contact response algorithm developed by Cirak
and West [34]. We resort to the classical law of unilateral contact and Coulomb friction. The contact
algorithm is coupled together with the cohesive approach in order to have a continuous transition
from crack nucleation to the pure frictional state.
The model has been validated by simulating a representative shear test on a masonry wallette.
Furthermore, the calibrated values for the interfacial transition zone in the wallette application have
been used to reproduce a test on a masonry wall loaded in compression and shear. The numerical
results have shown the capability of the model to represent the physical process involved during
cracking in compression and to give a good prediction of the structural response of the tested units.
This is achieved with a relatively simple model, which does not involve many parameters.
For the future, we plan to apply our model to simulate compression and shear of a mesoscale
concrete specimen to capture the interlock between the generated cracked surfaces.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This material is based on the work supported by the Swiss National Foundation under grant no. 200021
122046/1. The authors wish to thank Katrin Beyer for providing experimental data and helpful discussion.
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, must subsequently be projected back within

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