A dissipative orthotropic non-local approach for objective modelling of masonry structures

This paper presents the theoretical formulation and numerical implementation of an anisotropic non-local model for materials with intrinsic orthotropy. The model incorporates the mechanisms of orthotropic elasticity, orthotropic damage, shear friction and unilateral effect. To restore the objectivity of the results with respect to the mesh when scaling up to the structure, energetic and non-local regularisations are considered by integrating the orientation of the masonry arrangement in the regularisation domain. An orthotropic non-local averaging scheme is specially designed to capture the preferred damage path in masonry structures linked to the architectural features of the material. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the non-local enhancement in preventing mesh dependency. • Anisotropic non-local integral formulation for softening materials with intrinsic anisotropy. • Fixed directional approach to describe orthotropic damage. • Thermodynamic formalism to identify the dissipation sources. • Comparison between local and non-local regularisation techniques on notched specimen and hollow wall. • Non-local integral enhancements result in increased structural stiffness and a higher peak force.