Abstract

Arch bridges were the first constructions with considerable spans built by man, due to the materials and technologies available at that time. Afterwards, these works of art have diversified and are now solutions used in countless situations, especially when crossing deep valleys."/jats:p""jats:p"Both their economic and architectonic aspects are hard to combat and have led to selecting this type of structure for more and more locations."/jats:p""jats:p"The paper will contain a brief presentation of some aspects regarding upper path concrete arch bridges composition and design methods. Also, it will have a case study regarding structural stresses over the different construction stages, and for several support hypotheses."/jats:p""jats:p"The case study will reflect the Crivadia viaduct, situated on DN 66, at km 150+672. The bridge has a main span of 59.20m and an overall height of 15.00m, serving a 7.80m wide carriageway and two 2.20m wide footways. It has a total length of 107.60m. "/jats:p""jats:p"Based on the results of the case study, conclusions will be drawn regarding stress variation over the construction stages and under different support hypothesis, comparing these with the initial results. Document type: Article

Abstract

One of the crucial issues in the still open problem of seismic analyses of masonry constructions is the study of the structural capacity for cyclic loadings; the difficulties are even more pronounced when constructions embedding curved elements like arches, vaults and domes have to be studied. In order to develop effective nonlinear numerical models, the latter have to be capable of representing the relevant aspects of the experimental behavior, and the mechanical parameters of the model have to be carefully calibrated with reference to suitable experimental test results. In this paper the outcomes of experimental tests on a tuff masonry arch under cyclic loading are proposed and discussed, along with the results of experimental tests on the masonry materials (blocks and mortar) aimed at determining the compressive, flexural and shear behavior.

Abstract

A computational method is proposed for the lower-bound limit analysis of masonry arches with multiple failure sections. Main motivation is the observation that, not only the position, but also the orientation of the failure sections in an arch might not be known in advance in practical applications. The lower-bound limit analysis problem is formulated as a straightforward linear programming problem. Numerical simulations highlight the predicting capabilities of the proposed approach, enabling an accurate and safe prediction of the loading capacity of masonry arches.