Structural Effects of Brick Arrangement and Span Length on Mid-Pointed Arches

Abstract

One of the most important, valuable and remarkable elments of Persian architecture is brick masonry arch. Structural behaviour of Persian brick masonry arches has not been studied in details. Any investigation into their characteristics can be beneficial for maintenance, retrofit, restoration and reconstruction of such arches. The effect of a brick arrangement in the fabric of arches, such as Roman and barrel arrangements, on structural behaviour of brick masonry arches has been a serious controversy among architects and structural engineers for many years. In this study, micro-modelling finite element technique has been used to analyse mid-pointed arches with two different brick arrangements, i.e. Roman and barrel arrangements, under static weight load using the finite element method. Analyses have been carried out and obtained results have been discussed to describe the effect of brick arrangement on structural behaviour of analysed arches with three different span lengths.