Numerical methods for the dynamical analysis of masonry structures

The paper deals with the numerical solution of the dynamic problem of masonry structures. Masonry is modelled as a non-linear elastic material with zero tensile strength and infinite compressive strength. Due to the non-linearity of the adopted constitutive equation, the equations of the motion must be integrated directly. In particular, we apply the Newmark or the Hilber-Hughes-Taylor methods implemented in code NOSA to perform the time integration of the system of ordinary differential equations obtained from discretising the structure into finite elements. Moreover, with the aim of evaluating the effectiveness of these two methods, some dynamic problems, whose explicit solutions are known, have been solved numerically. Comparisons between the exact solutions and the corresponding approximate solutions obtained via the Newmark and Hilber-Hughes-Taylor methods show that in the cases under consideration both numerical methods yield satisfactory results.