Influence of imperfection on the failure analysis of masonry arches

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of imperfection on the load bearing capacity of Persian brick masonry arches has been studied. Loadings applied are support settlement, support rotation, temperature and the earthquake. Seven shapes have been considered for arches including semi-circular, pointed, and four-centred shapes, the last two shapes have three categories of drop, ordinary, and raised shapes each. Support settlement and support rotation are applied to all seven shapes. Temperature and earthquake are applied to three shapes including semi-circular, ordinary four-centred, and ordinary pointed arches. Imperfection is considered in two different locations relative to the support. Additionally, the imperfection is placed once at the extrados and once at the intrados. Nonlinear finite element analysis is performed by using the ANSYS code. The Willam-Warnke failure criterion is used for the brick masonry. The types of arches showing better performance have been determined for various imperfection cases and different loadings. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.