On the collapse behavior of a wood arch made with modular hollow blocks

In the field of construction, wood products are known to have environmental benefits if compared with materials like steel and concrete, especially regarding the reduction of carbon emissions of the production line. Today, the wood-architecture is maintained and renewed by the marketing of components or premanufactured wooden frame elements. This research consists in the numerical study of a wooden arch behavior realized with hollow blocks. Initially, experimental tests have been performed on a full-scale arch model. The results of the load tests have been compared with three different FEM-analyses. In particular, in the numerical simulations the hollow blocks have been modelled once as beam elements, then as plate elements and, finally, as block elements, they distinguish for the level of accuracy and the level of calculus. Results are interesting to evaluate the better compromise between accuracy and cumbersome calculus to get a reliable modeling of these kinds of structures.