Issue 47

P. Olmati et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 47 (2019) 141-149; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.47.11 141 Design of Civil Environmental Engineering Simplified FEM modelling for the collapse assessment of a masonry vault Pierluigi Olmati Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (now at TAISEI Corp., Tokyo, Japan) pierluigi.olmati@gmail.com Konstantinos Gkoumas Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (now at European Commission, Joint Research Centre) konstantinos.gkoumas@uniroma1.it, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3833-6223 Franco Bontempi Sapienza University of Rome, Italy franco.bontempi@uniroma1.it, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6377-7501 A BSTRACT . This study is motivated from the collapse of an old masonry building in the Southern Italy. FEM analyses are carried out focusing on the influence of the contrasting wall on the stability of the vault. In the analyses, the structure is subjected to a damage scenario on the contrasting wall due to a demolition project, and the consequence of the damage is evaluated using the explicit dynamic simulation made by Ls-Dyna®. A micro modelling technique (discrete FEM model) is adopted to model the masonry: the mortar is modelled by contact surfaces between the masonry units, which are explicitly modelled by blocks of meshes. This modelling technique is proven to be effective to predict the collapse behavior of the structure. K EYWORDS . FEM; Masonry structures; Forensic investigations; Vault structures. Citation: Olmati, P., Gkoumas, K., Bontempi, F., Simplified FEM modelling for the collapse assessment of a masonry vault, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 47 (2019) 141-149. Received: 21.08.2018 Accepted: 17.11.2018 Published: 01.01.2019 Copyright: © 2019 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION asonry structures are widespread in the world, built with different materials and different construction techniques. Some of them are old: masonry construction initiated in the ancient times, as early as 4.000 BC with stonemasonry in Ancient Egypt, and culminated in the Roman era with the development of the Roman Arch. The behavior of masonry buildings is affected by the used materials, the quality of the mortar and workmanship, the assembly, and their age. M