Compressive testing of an early 20th century brick masonry pillar

Abstract

An experimental campaign involving the compressive testing of a brick masonry pillar extracted from a historical building is presented in this paper. The test procedure and the instrumentation are designed in order to determine, in addition to the compressive strength and global Young's modulus of the structure, the behavior in different parts of the pillar. Material samples, representative of the external leaf and the infill, are extracted from the pillar and tested in compression. Differences in strength and elasticity of the two components are critically presented and their influence on the maximum load and failure mode of the pillar are discussed. Finally, a simple analytical model is employed in order to quantify the effect of the mismatch of Young's modulus of the two components of the pillar. Analogies between the studied pillar and three-leaf wall masonry are drawn.