Masonry Arch Bridges

For millennia bridges have been used to cross barriers, typically a river, stream, or valley, by using locally available materials, such as stones, timber. Originally, cut trees were simply placed across streams to allow crossing. Later, pieces of wood were lashed together to make the improvements in functionality of the bridges. Such bridges are known as frame bridges . Since these early times bridge engineering has evolved into a major discipline in itself, one that benefits from the advances made in other engineering disciplines, such as engineering geology, water resources engineering, geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering. Based on these disciplines, modern bridge engineering mainly deals with (a) planning, (b) analysis, (c) design, (d) construction, (e) maintenance, and (f) rehabilitation. In modern society, bridges facilitate in surface...

Was zunächst die einfache Bezeichnung für ein Bauwerk war, das Hindernisse überwindet mit dem Zweck, eine Verbindung zwischen unverbundenen Teilen zu schaffen, ist längst zu einem Begriff geworden, der derart reich an metaphorischem und symbolischem Gehalt ist, dass diese uneigentlichen Bedeutungen die eigentliche bei Weitem zu überwiegen scheinen: wir bauen Brücken zwischen einzelnen Menschen ebenso wie zwischen Überzeugungen, ja sogar zwischen den unterschiedlichsten Kulturen, wir können Brücken hinter uns einreißen oder jemandem goldene Brücken bauen, Hindernisse überbrücken oder eine Brücke zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, Gegenwart und Zukunft bilden. In der Literatur ist die Brücke neben dem Fluss eine der bedeutendsten Metaphern der Grenze und Grenzüberschreitung, Symbol der Verbindung zwischen Bewusstem und Unbewusstem ebenso wie für den Übertritt vom Diesseits ins Jenseits. Trotz dieser Aufladung mit sekundären Bedeutungen bleibt die Anbindung an die konkrete Konstruktion der Brücke immer erhalten. Eindrucksvolle Beispiele für diese Verbindung aus der europäischen Geschichte sind Brücken wie jene über den Euphrat, die 36 n.Ch. eigens für den Vertragsabschluss zwischen dem römischen Konsul Vitellius und dem parthischen König Artabanos III. gebaut wurde und damit den Symbolgehalt zurückbindet an die reale Konstruktion. Die Tagung möchte genau dieser Weite und Vielschichtigkeit der Bedeutung Rechnung tragen, indem sie das Thema der Brücke auf ganz unterschiedliche Weisen in den Blick nimmt. Sie schließt sich in gewisser Weise dem an, was Erich Heckel, einer der Begründer der expressionistischen Künstlergruppe Die Brücke, von deren Namenswahl berichtet: " Schmidt-Rottluff sagte, wir könnten das Brücke nennen – das sei ein vielschichtiges Wort, würde kein Programm bedeuten, aber gewissermaßen von einem Ufer zum anderen führen.

Enrollment deadline: June 26, 2021.
https://www.cism.it/en/activities/courses/A2102/
Masonry structures – collections of individual solid blocks with dry or mortared contacts – appear everywhere around us, from architectural heritage through historic or contemporary civilian buildings to traffic infrastructure. The assessment of their structural integrity poses serious challenges: due to their discrete built-up, usual continuum-based calculation methods are often incapable to reflect the mechanical behavior. In cases when the failure is caused by some kind of a local effect (cracks opening up between voussoirs, individual blocks sliding out etc.) the mechanics of the problem may better be captured by methods that consider the structure as a collection of discrete bodies. Such methods are available in a wide variety today. The aim of the course is to give a detailed introduction to their theoretical fundaments, advantages and preferable fields of application, but also calling the attention to their limitations and disadvantages so that the participants of the course would build up a critical view of the choices they have when attacking a masonry mechanics problem. An explicit aim of the course is to give a sound basis for the participants to become able to develop their own methods, inspired either by classical graphical statics, or by any modern technique they find promising. The course will focus on four main topics: 1) Computerized graphical statics methods Graphical statics seemed to lose practical importance in the 2nd half of the XXth century when continuum-based numerical techniques and Limit State Analysis methods became widely applied in computerized manners. However, the recent decades brought a renaissance to the application of graphical statics in masonry analysis: powerful computer codes have been developed part of which are commercially available and part of which can be found as research tools. 2) Discrete element methods DEM was born at the end of the 1960ies as an alternative to FEM. DEM considers the simulated material or structure not as a continuum but as a collection of separate bodies being able to detach, slide, partly or completely separate, and form new contacts when large displacements may lead to the rearrangement of contact topology. Possibilities to partial cracking and sliding makes DEM particularly advantageous for masonry failure problems. 3) Blocky models The main drawback of DEM is that the analysis of whether new contacts are born in the system, simulations can be very computationally expensive. To avoid this, different blocky models have been suggested recently for problems when rearrangements of the topology are not expected, but the discrete built-up of the system is relevant (e.g. formation of partial cracks). These novel methods are considered as being in-between FEM and DEM. 4) Discrete dynamics Masonry structures are sensitive to earthquakes: seismic analysis is a crucial issue in masonry mechanics. Damping and contact sliding are significant in their energy dissipation and in the ability to adjust to ground displacements. Hence, special lectures will be devoted to the dynamics of masonry structures. In particular, lectures will focus on damping and large displacement dynamics which characterize the dynamic collapse of masonry structures. Targeted audience: young researchers (including PhD students); engineers interested in high-level computational tools for masonry analysis.

This document presents partial results of a much broader research project that has recognized historical and technical aspects pertaining to a set of 34 historic brick arch bridges, 20 of which still exist, all with diverse geometric characteristics and singular dimensions. The methodological process is exposed as carried out with one of them and conclusions are presented, which can be extended to almost the totality of the cases studied for the purpose of offering new analysis alternatives to professionals interested in the rehabilitation and conservation of the Colombian architectural and engineering patrimony.