Seismic Assessment of Roman Concrete Groin Vaults through UAV, NDT and 3D Analyses

Abstract

In Roman Baths, the Romans employed barrel and groin vaults of great dimensions, with maximum span more than 20 m; simple tools of structural analysis of ancient wide span vaulted halls are still lacking, due to geometrical and material complexity. In this paper, we study the collapse behavior, under horizontal static action, of a corner cross vault of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome (Hall I). Two methods of analysis are here used: non-linear incremental finite element and limit analysis. In both cases, 3D models have been developed by means of UAV inspection, NDT measures, and AVT monitoring. The construction of the overall 3D geometry has been here afforded with a specific pre-processing approach. Midas commercial software has been employed for FEM analysis, assuming a constitutive law specifically developed for Roman concrete. In limit analysis, masonry is discretized as a system of interacting rigid bodies in no-tension and frictional contact. The computational code consists in a linear approach, which makes use of a series of optimization packages via lower and upper bound techniques. Finally, a strategy based on FEM analysis including discontinuities was implemented, and the results were compared with the two previous approaches.

Numerical Simulation of the Response of an Unreinforced Brick-Masonry Cross Vault Subjected to Seismic Loading

“…As reported in the literature review conducted by Bertolesi et al (2019), the assessment of the response of curved structures, mainly ribbed or groin vaults, has been thoroughly investigated in the last two decades. Such investigations involved the application of different methodologies such as laboratory testing (Theodossopoulos et al, 2002;Foraboschi, 2004;De Matteis and Mazzolani, 2010;Krajewski and Hojdys, 2014;Fagone, Rotunno, and Bati, 2016;Milani et al, 2016;Rossi, Calderini, and Lagomarsino, 2016;Rossi et al, 2017;Torres et al, 2019;Bianchini et al, 2022), thrust-based approaches (Block and Ochsendorf, 2007;Angelillo, Babilio, and Fortunato, 2013;Rossi et al, 2017;De Lorenzis, Dimitri, and La Tegola, 2007;Fraternali, 2010;Coccia and Como, 2015), limit analysis (Block, Ciblac, and Ochsendorf, 2006;Milani, Milani, and Tralli, 2008;Milani, Milani, and Tralli, 2009;Milani, 2015;Chiozzi, Milani, and Tralli, 2017;Gaetani et al, 2017), numerical simulations based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) (Creazza et al, 2002;Theodossopoulos et al, 2002;Theodossopoulos, Sinha, and Usmani, 2003;Milani, Simoni, and Tralli, 2014;Lengyel and Bagi, 2015;Milani et al, 2016;Angjeliu, Cardani, and Coronelli, 2019;Gaetani, Bianchini, and Lourenço, 2021;Alforno et al, 2022;Santini et al, 2022;Bianchini et al, 2023c), the Discrete Element Method (DEM) (McInerney...…”

Integrated Modeling of Minerva Medica to Identify the Dynamic Effects of Rail-Traffic Vibrations

“…There are several studies in the literature on applications of finite-element models to study dynamic analyses with use of experimental measurements; a large part of the scientific literature concerns slender structures, such as towers and minarets [4][5][6][7][8]. There are also works regarding ancient Roman constructions, such as the Colosseum [3,9,10], the Basilica of Maxentius [2], the Baths of Diocletian [11], the Trajan Arch [12], the Circus Maximum [13], the Frontinus Gate [14], the Verona Arena [15], and the so-called Temple of Minerva Medica [16,17]; the main focus of these studies is dynamic identification, thus processing of site-recorded data to extract the modal features of these constructions.…”