Recent Scientific Developments on the Mechanics of Masonry Structures

Dear Colleagues,

Unreinforced masonry constitutes one of the most common structural typologies in Western and Eastern architecture, and it largely prevails in many of the historical buildings worldwide, including monumental constructions and other buildings of relevant artistic significance in regard to world cultural heritage. Masonry is also significantly widespread among ancient infrastructures such as historical bridges and tunnels. Due to aging, changing loading demands, weathering, vibrations due to earthquakes and anthropogenic events, and many other factors, masonry structures often show significant signs of deterioration and distress, and the long-term performance of such assets is affected by high uncertainty. Structural failures in masonry-built environments would lead to uncountable direct and indirect economical and social losses, and an inestimable value is therefore at stake. Hence, there currently is an urgent need to better understand both the in-service and ultimate structural behavior of masonry structures under the action of both static and dynamic loading. To this aim, the effective and reliable structural assessment of new and historical masonry structures requires, on the one hand, in-depth knowledge of their current state by properly surveying actual geometries, restraint and loading conditions, and pre-existing damage, as well as the testing and of materials’ mechanical properties. On the other hand, the development of novel advanced mechanical models and accurate and efficient numerical techniques is strongly needed in order to predict the structural behavior of complex masonry structures under both service and exceptional loadings, such as earthquakes. Such models should precisely account for the strongly nonlinear compression-only mechanical behavior of masonry and different sources of uncertainty that can affect material mechanical properties and composition.

This Special Issue welcomes contributions that advance the state of the art of the aforementioned topics, including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Analytical and computational strategies for the assessment of the most common masonry structural systems such as walls, arches, vaults, and bridges.
• Numerical approaches for the analysis of masonry buildings undergoing earthquakes and other dynamical loadings.
• Standard and non-standard limit analysis of masonry structures.
• Rigid block models for masonry structures.
• Analytical and computational strategies for the repair and retrofitting of masonry structures.
• Soil–structure interaction for masonry structures.
• Dynamic or static, as well as in situ or laboratory, testing of masonry structures.
• Full-scale tests on structures.
• Fragility assessment of masonry structures.
• Vulnerability assessments of the masonry-built environment at the regional scale.

Dr. Andrea Chiozzi
Guest Editor

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