Keywords: masonry arch bridges, structural assessment, computational efficiency, reduced mesoscale models, material properties calibration, ageing infrastructure.

This paper introduces a reduced mesoscale modelling approach for the accurate and efficient assessment of old masonry bridges. As these ageing structures remain a vital part of Europe’s infrastructure, they must be assessed under current traffic loads using models that accurately capture the characteristic 3D response and the anisotropic behaviour arising from the actual masonry bond of the key bridge components. This can be achieved through detailed, high-fidelity 3D masonry models, though these can pose excessive computational demands, thereby constraining their practical application. Typically, more simplified models are used, either employing 3D macroscale isotropic approaches or 2D models that omit 3D effects, potentially leading to inaccurate response predictions. To improve this, the paper utilises mesoscale masonry models with relaxed bond patterns. Numerical results show that bridge models with a calibrated, reduced mesoscale mesh for the masonry parts of the bridge achieve performance comparable to full mesoscale models, capturing essential features of the response to vertical loading while significantly reducing the computational demand.

download the full-text of this paper (PDF, 16 pages, 999 Kb)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the volume description