Mixed Mode Fracture of Brickwork Masonry

The brickwork masonry, especially walls, often shows cracking ought to differential settlements and excessive deflections of the slabs. In these circumstances the cracks are induced by a combination of tensile and shear stresses, under static loading. Until now the study of the brickwork masonry failure under static loading has been focussed on the compression and compression/shear failure mechanisms, and minor effort has been devoted to study the tensile/ shear failure (mixed mode I/II fracture) [

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],[

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]. This is the reason because there are not enough experimental data for a good knowledge of the mixed mode fracture of the brickwork masonry. The experimental results are needed for a better knowledge of the failure mechanisms of the brickwork masonry under tensile/shear loading and to supply a benchmark to validate the analytical and numerical models for the mixed mode fracture of the brickwork masonry.