Block Users Manual

Agust n Ordu na Bustamante January, 2004

Contents
Contents 1 Introduction 2 Brief software description 2.1 What the software does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 How the software works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 File types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Installation 3.1 GAMS installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Block installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 3 3 3 4 5 5 5

4 Model development 8 4.1 2D models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4.2 3D models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5 Usage 13 5.1 Block2D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5.2 Block3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 References 18

Chapter 1 Introduction
This document presents a description of the Block software for the limit analysis of rigid blocks assemblages. Theoretical details about the used approach can be na (2003). The document aim is to provide the necessary inforconsulted in Ordu mation for a basic usage of the software. Therefore, chapter 2 briey describes the software, chapter 3 describes the software installation, chapter 4 provides information necessary for the development of structural models and chapter 5 explains the software usage. Note: This is a rst draft version of the manual and surely contains a number of errors and unclear sections. Please send your comments and suggestions to aord@civil.uminho.pt (messages in English, Portuguese and/or Spanish are welcome).

Chapter 2 Brief software description

2.1 What the software does

The Block software performs the necessary calculations for the limit analysis of rigid block assemblages and there are dierent versions for two- and threedimensional models, respectively. The software was developed taking in mind the seismic assessment of ancient masonry constructions. Hence, the structural model consisting of rigid blocks interacting through frictional interfaces was adopted because it provides a good representation for masonry structures. The adopted constitutive model for the joints aims also to represent the behaviour of ancient masonry structures. This model consists of the cohesionless Coulomb criterion for shear stresses and a no-tension and limited compressive stress criterion for normal stresses. The Coulomb friction model features a non-associated ow rule with zero dilatancy and the torsion failure mode is included in the three-dimensional model. na (2003). More details are given in Ordu

2.2

How the software works

Two parts compose the Block software: the pre- and post-processor part and the solution part. The pre- and post-processor is a Visual Basic application working inside AutoCAD. This means that the blocks model must be drawn in AutoCAD, as described in section 3, the pre-processor extracts the information from the drawing and gathers additional data from the user. Then, the pre-processor writes the les needed for the solution and post-processing phases. The solution phase is performed within the mathematical programming modelling environment GAMS (Brooke et al. 1998). The limit analysis mathematical problem has been modelled in the GAMS language and the data for a particular model can be read separately. The GAMS software produces an output le with the solution information that is later read by the post-processor in order to draw the failure mechanism and the joints thrusts in the model AutoCAD drawing. 3

2.3

File types

The main le types used by the Block software are described below. inple.txt This le contains all the geometrical information about a particular model. It is generated in the pre-processing phase and is used in the postprocessing phase to recover the model data without extracting it again from the drawing. outple.txt This le contains the solution information consisting in the blocks displacement rates for the failure mechanism and the joints generalised stresses. This le is written by the solver and it is used in the post-processing phase to draw the failure mechanism and joints thrusts. alpha.txt This le contains two columns with the eective stress and safety factor, respectively, and is written by the solver if the load-path following na 2003). procedure is used (Ordu *.gms These are les used by the GAMS software to dene the mathematical problem. In the Block system there are two les of this type: the block.gms le contains the mathematical problem denition in a general form and the data.gms le contains the data for a particular model. The data.gms le is generated by the pre-processor and is read in the solution phase from a command in the block.gms le. Block.dvb This is the Visual Basic code for the pre- and post-processors. There are dierent les of this type (in dierent directories) for the two- and three-dimensional models. block.out This le contains the data extracted from the model drawing in a semi-readable format.

Chapter 3 Installation
3.1 GAMS installation

The Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minho purchased one GAMS software licence with the solvers PATH and Conopt. This licence is valid until the GAMS version 20.7. The installation of the GAMS software follows a standard process in Windows programmes. It is started by executing the setup.exe le in the GAMS directory in the Block CD. After a welcome window, the installation directory can be selected and after a conrmation window the software is installed. The installation routine asks nally for a licence le, which is also in the GAMS directory of the Block CD. The licence le, gamslice.txt can be also copied later to the hard disk in the Program Files\GAMS20.7 directory. Next it is important to choose the default solvers for GAMS. Run the GAMSIDE programme (StartProgramsGAMSgamside). To edit the default solvers, choose FileOptionsSolvers. Click in the CONOPT row and NLP column to choose CONOPT as the default non-linear programming solver; and click on the PATH row and MCP column, to choose PATH as the default mixed complementarity problem solver. Finally, it is necessary to add the GAMS directory to the system path. It is also noted that the Block software works properly only if the decimal separator in the computer system is congured to be a point (.) rather than a comma (,).

3.2

Block installation

The rst step in the installation of the Block software is to create a directory in the hard drive in order to store the corresponding les. Hereafter, it is assumed that such directory is C:\Block. Inside this, copy the subdirectories Block2D and Block3D from the Block CD. The Block.dvb les are Visual Basic macros for AutoCAD. Therefore, they can 5

be loaded, inside AutoCAD, with the sequence ToolsMacroLoad Project. . . , choosing the Enable Macros option. Then, they can be ran from the Macros window (ToolsMacroMacros. . . ). Nevertheless, for a quicker access to the software, it is suggested the creation of a toolbar with buttons for running the two- and three-dimensional versions of Block. The procedure is as follows: 1. Create a toolbar. Open the Toolbars window with the sequence View Toolbars. . . . Click the New. . . button, write a name for the toolbar and click OK. A new toolbar without buttons will appear. 2. Add two buttons to the toolbar. In the Toolbars window, click the Customize. . . button and drag two buttons to the new toolbar. Any two buttons can be added as they will be modied in the next step. Click the Close button to return to the Toolbars window. Figure 3.1(a) shows the screen aspect after this step. 3. Congure the button for the two-dimensional Block programme. Right-click on one of the recently created buttons. The Button Properties window will appear; Figure 3.1(b). Give a name to the button and write a brief help phrase, which will appear when the cursor is placed over the button. In the Button Icon box, click the Edit. . . button. The Button Editor window will open, here click the Open. . . button and choose the corresponding icon from C:\Block\Block2D\block2d.bmp. Alternatively, you can create and/or modify your own icon with the tools provided in this window. In the Macro text box write the command: -vbarun C:/Block/Block2D/block.dvb!mdlStart.Start Block. It is observed that in the path of the block.dvb le, the directory instances are separated by slashes / and not backslashes \. Click the Apply button and close the Button Properties window. 4. Repeat the previous step for the three-dimensional Block programme and close the Toolbars window.

(a)

(b)

Figure 3.1: Block installation; (a) toolbar creation and (b) button conguration 7

Chapter 4 Model development

In the Block CD, there are sample les for two- and three-dimensional models. It is encouraged to start the development of a new model from a copy of one of these les because they contain AutoCAD blocks that are necessary for the model denition. Details about the denition of such AutoCAD blocks are not given here (although such details are expected to be in a later, more complete version of this document) and therefore, it is a must to use the already dened AutoCAD blocks. The Block software was developed specically for seismic assessment of structures. Therefore, by default the constant loading consists of the blocks self weights downwards applied, and the variable loading consists also of the blocks self weights but horizontally applied. In this way, the safety factor that results from the calculations is also interpreted as seismic coecient. Nevertheless, it is possible to apply additional, constant and variable loading, and also to substitute the default seismic loading for user dened variable loading, as described bellow.

4.1

2D models

In order to systematise the structural information in the AutoCAD drawing, the following conventions are introduced for two-dimensional models: In the sample les there is an AutoCAD block named General that contains general data for the limit analysis model. Such data is stored in the block attributes, which can be edited. For this reason, it is suggested to add an Edit Attributes button to the Block toolbar. There must be one General block in a model and can be placed anywhere and on any layer (if there are more than one General blocks with dierent data, the last one found by the programme will prevail over the others, but this cannot be controlled by the user). The data in the General block attributes are: The eective compressive stress and the friction coecient at the joints. Although these parameters can be dierent for each joint in the GAMS 8

model, here they are taken as global parameters and, if needed, they must be later edited by the user in the data.gms le. The Geometric Tolerance. This parameter denes the minimum dierence in the x and y coordinates of two nodes in order to be considered as dierent nodes. The gravitational multiplier or gravitational acceleration. The volumetric weights are multiplied by this parameter when calculating the blocks weights. If instead of volumetric weights, the user prefers to introduce densities, this parameter must be equal to the gravitational acceleration, otherwise it is normally equal to one. In the automatic loading calculations it is assumed that the y axis is vertical pointing upwards; hence, the weights are forces in the y direction. The earthquake direction. Following the previously mentioned axes convention, the horizontal seismic loads act along the x axis. The earthquake direction parameter denes only if the seismic loading is directed along the positive (+) or negative (-) direction of the x axis. Hence, this parameter can only take two values + or -, accordingly. The additional loading parameter. Together with the blocks self weights and seismic loadings, additional loadings can be dened as described below. The additional loading parameter indicates to the programme how such additional loading must be treated. It can take three values: A means that the additional loading must be Added to the automatically calculated loadings; S means that the variable additional loading Substitutes the automatically calculated seismic loading (the blocks self weights are not substituted rather they are added to the additional constant loading); and I means that the additional loading must be Ignored. The rigid blocks are AutoCAD regions formed by straight lines and are in layers named block[*]. In other words, the layer name starts with the word block followed by any set of characters chosen by the user in order to identify dierent rigid block types. The prex block is not case sensitive. For instance, valid rigid block layer names are: block01, Block02, BLOCK stone or BlocKbrick. AutoCAD regions contained in layers not named in this way are ignored. The Block2D programme identies a joint between two rigid blocks when the AutoCAD regions representing such blocks have two consecutive coincident nodes. Two nodes are coincident if the dierences in their coordinates (x, y ) are less or equal to the Geometric Tolerance dened in the General data block. Figure 4.1 shows part of a wall model. The nodes in the middle of the long sides of the blue and green blocks, even when unnecessary for the geometric 9

Figure 4.1: Two dimensional rigid blocks modelling denition of the blocks, are necessary in order to appropriately dene the joints that connect them with the adjacent blocks. Also in this gure, if the blue node would exist in the green block but not in the orange block, then the programme would not create a joint between these blocks and the model would be incorrect. In the sample les, there is another AutoCAD block denition named Material. This AutoCAD block has two attributes that contain the volumetric weight and thickness of the rigid blocks in a layer. Therefore, each rigid block layer must have a Material AutoCAD block and it can be placed anywhere in the drawing. The volumetric weight and thickness are introduced by editing the Material block attributes. There is another AutoCAD block denition named Support that serves to dene the model supports. The brush-like red shapes in the bottom of Figure 4.1 are instances of this AutoCAD block. The Support AutoCAD blocks must be in a layer named Supports and their insertion point must be at a mid-side of a rigid block (within the Geometric Tolerance), otherwise they are ignored. The side of a rigid block where a support is placed is recognised by the programme as a joint connecting the block to a ctitious xed block. The yellow block in Figure 4.1 is dened by the black nodes, while the red spot is the middle of its lower side and at the same point is placed the insertion point of the Support AutoCAD block instance The tie (strengthening) elements (if exist) must be straight lines placed in AutoCAD layers named tie[*]. Both tie extremes must be inside two dierent rigid blocks and away from their nodes a distance at least equal to the Geometric Tolerance. The material properties of the ties in a particular layer are dened by the AutoCAD block named TieMat. Such material properties

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are the cross section area, the yield stress and the volumetric weight, and can be changed by editing the attributes of the TieMat block instance. It is possible to apply additional loads using the AutoCAD blocks Const Load (for constant loads) and Var Load (for variable loads). These additional loads are applied on the rigid blocks centroids and consist of the forces in the x and y directions and the moment. Therefore, the AutoCAD blocks Load and Live load have attributes for introducing the values of such forces and moment, and their insertion point must be placed at the centroid of the block where the loading is applied (within the Geometric Tolerance).

4.2

3D models

In three-dimensional models, it is supposed that the Z axis is vertical pointing upwards and, evidently, the X and Y axes are horizontal. The three-dimensional version of the Block software was maintained as similar as possible with the twodimensional version; therefore, only the dierences between the two versions are stressed in what follows: The earthquake direction is dened by a unitary vector in the XY plane. Therefore, the General data AutoCAD block contains two attributes for the X and Y components of the earthquake direction vector. The components introduced by the user need not to form a unitary vector since the programme calculates and applies the appropriate factor. The remaining data in the General block is the same as in two-dimensions, namely: the eective compressive stress, the friction coecient, the geometric tolerance, the gravitational multiplier and the additional loading parameter. The rigid blocks are AutoCAD solids in layers named block[*]. The blocks can have any shape in principle; nevertheless, the joints between blocks and the supports must be quadrilateral and preferably rectangular. In Block3D, the joints must be specied in the drawing by AutoCAD regions placed in layers named joint[*]. As stated in the previous item, the joints must be quadrilateral and also the four vertices must be close to the two adjacent blocks a distance not larger than the geometric tolerance in the X , Y and Z directions. The Material block has only the volumetric weight attribute. The support joints are dened by quadrilateral regions in the Supports layer. The four vertices of a support must be close to one rigid block a distance not larger than the geometric tolerance in the X , Y and Z directions. It is observed that what distinguish a regular joint from a support joint is that 11

the former is adjacent to two blocks while the later is adjacent to only one block. Therefore, the joint[*] and Supports layers are regarded as the same by the programme. This means that a regular joint can be in the Supports layer and conversely, a support can be in a joint[*] layer. The tie (strengthening) elements are dened in the same way as in the twodimensional case. The Const Load and Var Load AutoCAD blocks for additional loading definition have six attributes: the X , Y and Z forces and the X , Y and Z moments.

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Chapter 5 Usage
Once a structural model has been dened following the rules described in the previous chapter, it is possible to run the Block software inside AutoCAD. The basic steps in the analysis of a structural model are: (1) extraction of the information from the AutoCAD drawing and evaluation of this information correctness; (2) execution of the solution routine in GAMS; and (3) interpretation of the analysis results by means of the graphical representation of the failure mechanism and joint thrusts. The Block software has tools for performing these steps as described in this chapter.

5.1

Block2D

Figure 5.1 presents the two pages of the Block2D programme window. The rst page, named Data & Analysis, provides the user with the following functions; Figure 5.1(a): Get data button. A click on this button starts the Visual Basic routine which scans the actual drawing and extracts the information provided by the user about the structural model. This routine produces as output the les: data.gms, inple.txt and block.out, already described in section 2.3. Show numbers button. The extracting data routine assigns identication numbers to the rigid blocks, nodes, and joints in the model. With the Show numbers button, the programme displays such numbers in the same drawing in a layer named Numbers. It is possible to control the size of the numbers by modifying the gure in the Size of numbers box above the Show numbers button. Initially the Show numbers button is dimmed, because the programme does not know the model data, only after pressing either the Get data or the Get results buttons, it is possible to show the model elements numbers. Analysis button. This button calls the GAMS package in order to obtain the solution to the limit analysis problem. In the check boxes above the 13

(a)

(b)

Figure 5.1: Block2D window; (a) Data & Analysis page and (b) Mechanism page button, the user must indicate if the model has tie elements and if the solution procedure consisting of minimising the load factor (alpha) will be used. The default alternative solution procedure is the load-path following one na (2003). described in Ordu Get results button. Once the solution to the limit analysis problem has been obtained, the user must press this button in order to read the inple.txt and outple.txt les. This action will allow the user to use the Show numbers button and to go to the Mechanism page in order to plot the failure mechanism and joint thrusts. The second page in the Block window, named Mechanism, provides the user with the following functions; Figure 5.1(b): Plot mechanism button. A click on this button will produce a graphical representation of the failure mechanism on a layer named Mechanism. The user 14

can choose the amplication factor for the displacement rates by modifying the Factor for mechanism plot. The Plot mechanism button also prints the safety factor at the coordinates origin point. Plot thrusts button. This button produces a graphical representation of the joint thrusts consisting of straight lines placed and oriented as the force resultant on each joint. The length of the line is proportional to the magnitude of the represented force, and the size of the maximum line length is controlled by the Factor for thrusts plot. The programme creates, if it does not exist, a layer named Thrust to plot the thrusts in. The End button terminates the programme. When the Block programme starts, the Plot mechanism and Plot thrusts buttons in the Mechanism page are dimmed, and only are enabled after reading the limit analysis results with the Get results button. After extracting the model information by means of the Get data button, it is important to use the Show numbers button in order to verify the correctness of the model. In fact, it is suggested to exit from the programme at this stage and look at the numbers in the drawing to verify if the programme correctly recognised every rigid block and joint in the model. The supports are also joints, as was already mentioned, and have the largest joint numbers. Figure 5.2 shows part of a wall model with the numbers displayed. It is observed that the rigid block numbers are near the block centroid, the joints are marked by a triangle and the joint number and the nodes are marked by a + sign and the node number.

Figure 5.2: Sample of numbers in a two dimensional rigid blocks model The next step is the solution of the mathematical problem with GAMS. In the Block CD there are four les *.gms for two-dimensional analysis, corresponding to dierent needs of the model: block.gms for a model without ties and block-tie.gms for a model with ties both solved by the load-following procedure; block m.gms for a model without ties and block-tie m.gms for a model with ties both solved by minimising the load factor. At the present stage of the Block software development, it needs some assistance from the user: the *.gms le which meets the model needs 15

must be copied to the directory where the AutoCAD drawing le is, and this *.gms le must be edited to include such directory path, as described here: Line 67. This line contains the \$include command that calls the data.gms le. An example of this line is: $include c:\Block\Block2D\sample\data.gms

Line 241. This line denes the alpha.txt le for output and must be modied if the load-path following procedure is used. An example of this line is: File alfatxt / c:\Block\Block2D\sample\alpha.txt / ;

Line 265. This line denes the outple.txt le for output. An example of this line is: File output / c:\Block\Block2D\sample\outpfile.txt / ;

Once the appropriate *.gms le has been copied and edited, it is possible to use the GAMS package in order to obtain the mathematical problem solution. This task can be performed by three ways. The rst is by running the Block programme with the model le as active drawing in AutoCAD, choosing the appropriate options (ties and solution procedure) and clicking the Analysis button. It is not necessary to extract the model information again as it is already in the data.gms le. The second option is to run the *.gms model from the GAMSIDE programme. And the third option is to run the model from the command line in a DOS window, the command for the default model is: gams block in the working directory. If other than the default model is used, the block parameter must be substituted by the name of the appropriate *.gms le, according to the description given above (the le extension can be dropped). Finally, when the solution has been successfully obtained, it is possible to ask the Block programme for drawing the failure mechanism and thrusts. To do this, run the Block programme (if it is not running already) with the model le as active drawing in AutoCAD, read the analysis results with the Get results button, go to the Mechanism page and use the Plot mechanism and Plot thrusts buttons. Once again it is not necessary to extract the model information since it is read from the inple.txt le while the results are read from the outple.txt le. Figure 5.3 shows the output for the example.dwg model provided in the Block CD in terms of thrusts and failure mechanism.

16

(a)

(b)

Figure 5.3: Block2D sample output; (a) thrusts and (b) failure mechanism

5.2

Block3D

The usage of the three-dimensional version of the Block software is the same as the two-dimensional one. The programme window provides the same buttons and controls, Figure 5.1, with the same functions. A marginal dierence between the two software versions is the numeration of joints and supports: as in three dimensions, joints and supports are regraded the same, their numbers are mixed, while in two dimensions, the joints have lower numbers than the supports, as already mentioned. The *.gms les containing the three-dimensional formulation of the limit analysis problem are in the corresponding directory of the Block CD. They have the same names as the two-dimensional versions, namely: block.gms and block-tie.gms for the load-path following solution procedure and for models without and with tie elements, respectively; and block m.gms and block-tie m.gms for the minimising alpha procedure, without and with tie elements, respectively. The numbers of the lines that must be edited for specifying the model directory path are 137, 752 and 779. 17

References
Brooke, A., D. Kendrick, A. Meeraus, R. Raman, and R. E. Rosenthal (1998). GAMS a users guide. Technical report, GAMS Develpment Corporation, Washington, DC, USA. Ordu na, A. (2003). Seismic assessment of ancient masonry structures by rigid blocks limit analysis. Ph. D. thesis, University of Minho, Guimar aes, Portugal.

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