Shaking table tests and numerical analyses on a scaled dry-joint arch undergoing windowed sine pulses

Abstract

The damages occurred during recent seismic events have emphasised the vulnerability of vaulted masonry structures, one of the most representative elements of worldwide cultural heritage. Although a certain consensus has been reached regarding the static behaviour of masonry arches, still more efforts are requested to investigate their dynamic behaviour. In this regard, the present paper aims to investigate the performance of a scaled dry-joint arch undergoing windowed sine pulses. A feature tracking based measuring technique was employed to evaluate the displacement of selected points, shading light on the failure mechanisms and gathering data for the calibration of the numerical model. This was built according to a micro-modelling approach of the finite element method, with voussoirs assumed very stiff and friction interface elements. Comparisons with existing literature are also stressed, together with comments about scale effects.

Seismic capacity and multi-mechanism analysis for dry-stack masonry arches subjected to hinge control

“…The non-linear FEM analysis requires a high level of expertise to employ and is computationally expensive. Nonetheless, it has been successfully applied in both static pushover and non-linear dynamic cases (Formisano and Marzo 2017;Gaetani et al 2016;Pelà 2015;Krstevska et al 2010;Pelà et al 2009;Fanning, et al2005). DEM was originally used in rock engineering where continuity does not exist and has been used for simulating the mechanical behaviour of masonry structures Giamundo et al 2014;Forgacs et al 2017;Bui et al 2017;Cundal 1971).…”

Dynamic characterization of progressively damaged segmental masonry arches with one settled support: experimental and numerical analyses

“…As a second attempt a numerical simulation is performed reducing the mortar joint thickness as done in [3,43,44], fact that can be reasonably justified by the necessity to take into account the slight variations in thickness, corner rounding and imperfections typical of a manually assembled geometry. The results obtained by this simulation show that the only way to invert fourth and fifth mode shapes is to reduce the mortar joint thickness at least of 20%.…”

“…Yet, during their lifespan, masonry arches are exposed to several threats that can adversely affect their bearing capacity and stability, such as structural damages due to horizontal actions or excessive vertical loads originated by the increased traffic demand, materials degradation and springing settlements. In this regard, many research works have been devoted in the last years to investigating the mechanics of masonry arches up to failure for different loading conditions [2][3][4][5][6][7] and arch shapes [8] as well as considering the influence of geometrical irregularities [9,10], materials nonlinearity [11], arch-fill interaction [11,12] and localized damages [13,14]. Apart from a few exceptions, a large amount of this literature focused on simplified uni-or bi-dimensional problems with the aim of shedding light on the collapse mechanisms of masonry arches to evaluate the minimum load multipliers and ultimate load carrying capacity.…”

Collapse Mechanisms of Masonry Buttressed With Settled Support

“…Following the works by Heyman, many researchers have studied, with rigid block analysis, the ultimate condition of masonry arch structures due to different type of load conditions and different arch geometries. In particular, some of these works focused on collapse mechanisms due to horizontal loads on: masonry circular arches [17][18][19], masonry buttered arches and masonry pointed arches [20]. Although rigid block analysis is the simplest type of analysis used for the structural assessment of masonry arches, it gives reliable results.…”