ABSTRACT
Masonry buildings represent most of the historical and monumental constructions in the World. The evaluation of the safety state of this cultural heritage represents an actual and important structural problem. The masonry material is characterized by a high compressive strength respect to the tensile one. This peculiarity turns out in the difficulty of building wide span roofing systems, which has been overcome by ancients through the use of arched and vaulted structures. The chapter presents a numerical method for assessing the safety of masonry arches. The history of the development of the methodologies for the analysis of arched masonry structures is long and full of interesting ideas that promoted new researches. A large use of nonlinear finite element analysis is made for the evaluation of the state of stress and for the identification of the damage evolution for masonry structures.
