STABILITY ANALYSES FOR ANCIENT MASONRY STRUCTURES USING DISCONTINUOUS DEFORMATION ANALYSIS AND NUMERICAL MANIFOLD METHOD

Abstract

In this paper, the stability including stress distribution of two ancient masonry structures, the pyramid of the Pharaoh Khufu, Egypt and the Pont of Gard, were analyzed using discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) and numerical manifold method (NMM). For the simulation using NMM, the newly developed four-node isoparametric element was used. The stress distributions/concentration were calculated and compared between the two methods. The calculated results show qualitative agreement with observations. DDA and NMM are applicable to simulate the physical phenomena of masonry structures.