Dynamic behavior of unreinforced and FRCM reinforced full-scale masonry arches

Masonry arches, one of the most iconic architectural and structural elements of historical constructions, show a pronounced seismic vulnerability, entailing the risk of losing important parts of our architectural and cultural heritage. Thus, the problem of the dynamic behavior of masonry arches and vaults has gained increasing interest in recent years. Anyway, the literature on this important research topic is still quite limited [1], especially for what concerns the case of reinforced masonry arches. The above motivates the present study, that concerns experimental full-scale dynamic tests on unreinforced and GFRCM-reinforced Apulian tuff masonry arches. For the experiments, a test bench expressly designed and built has been used. Masonry arches have been dynamically excited by a harmonic base motion with fixed amplitude and increasing frequency. During the tests, the dynamic response of the examined arches has been experimentally investigated in terms of accelerations of the instrumented points of the arches and of base shear and base displacements. The preliminary experimental results obtained are discussed in the light of some theoretical works about the dynamic of masonry arches [2-4]. Moreover, the amplification of the base motion, the damage and possible collapse modes, and the effect of the interaction between FRCM reinforcements and the masonry structures are examined.