Creep behavior of a building stone from the South of Italy

Stone materials can suffer high long-term deformations when subjected to constant compressive load. The knowledge of creep behaviour of these materials is crucial for determining the safety factor of a structure, including historical buildings with large ashlar walls, and, generally, all types of buildings in which the stone acts as a structural component or is the support of foundation loads. This chapter aims to investigate the possibility of exploiting the vast experience accumulated in the study of concrete in order to obtain a reasonable approach to the behaviour of the stone. A well-known stone from Trani in the South of Italy, locally named as "Calcareous Tufa" has been physically and mechanically characterized and then subjected to long-term compressive laboratory tests. Stone materials can suffer high long-term deformations when subjected to constant compressive load. The chapter proposes a creep function adapted to the studied stone only dependent on its elastic and mechanical characteristics.