Modelling of masonry walls rendered with auxetic foam layers against vehicular impacts

Masonry walls allow easy intrusion of the impacting vehicles into the impacted buildings. The cause of the damage due to vehicular impacts in masonry walls is the generation of tensile stresses due to “Poisson’s effect”. Auxetic foams, due to their negative Poisson’s ratio, can eliminate these tensile stresses. In this study, masonry walls with and without Auxetic foam renders subject to lateral impact were analysed using an explicit finite element method incorporating shell elements. Masonry was considered as a homogenised continuum with distinct directional properties. The Poisson’s ratio of the Auxetic layers was considered as -0.2 and -0.9. The impact scenario was simulated using applied velocities. The results show that Auxetic layer reduced stresses in the masonry wall. The detailed deformation and failure results of the numerical examples encourage the potential for developing Auxetic composite render material, and methods of design and application to masonry walls to mitigate vehicular intrusions. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London.