Structural Performance of Old Composite Floors Made up of Wrought Iron Joists and Masonry Vaults

Abstract

In this paper the behaviour of old floors made up of wrought iron beams supporting shallow masonry vaults is analysed. The performance of this structural system, which was extensively used in Europe in the XIX century, has been only marginally investigated thus far. Very few studies on masonry-iron composite floors are available in the literature, where the role played by the physical interaction between the vaults and the metallic profiles has yet to be fully understood. When assessing historical buildings with floors characterised by the analysed floor system, a realistic estimate of this interaction may be critical to avoid unnecessary and costly strengthening works. The floor structure with composite wrought iron beams and solid brick vaults of the “Military Hospital” in Trieste built in 1840 by the Hapsburg Military Administration have been investigated performing physical experiments and numerical simulations. Experimental tests were carried on the floor and used to calibrate finite element numerical descriptions. These have been adopted in numerical simulations to investigate the response of the analysed floor system up to collapse considering different geometrical characteristics for the floor. The numerical results shed some light on the actual interaction between the different components of the composite floor which significantly influences the floor stiffness and load bearing capacity.