STRUCTURAL BEHAVIOUR OF HISTORICAL STONE ARCHES AND VAULTS: EXPERIMENTAL TESTS AND NUMERICAL INTERPRETATION

In order to properly design strengthening interventions of both historical and existing buildings, a careful assessment of the real structural behavior and load-carrying capacity of these buildings is strongly required. This is particularly important when dealing with construction made of heterogeneous materials like masonry or stonework, where often conventional analysis techniques do not give satisfactory results. This paper presents the results of an extensive experimental investigation and series of numerical simulations of a large building of the XIX century. In-situ tests were carried out on different types of stone arches, with the purpose of investigating their mechanical response and the structural behavior of stonework under different types of in-plane loads. Arches were tested with symmetric and asymmetric static loading configurations first and then dynamic actions, in order to assess the corresponding key parameters of the structural system. A number of stone cored specimens and reconstructed stonework walls were also tested under compression in laboratory, in order to define the stone masonry compressive strength. The experimental data were compared with the numerical results obtained by a detailed finite element model of a portion of the building composed of walls, arches and vaults. Finally, the numerical models were used to perform nonlinear analyses in order to estimate the ductility capacity of arches under horizontal forces, taking the stiffening effect of vaults into account