Experimental testing of tile vaults

Abstract

Tile vaults (sometimes also referred to as thin-tile, timbrel, Catalan or Guastavino vaults) are masonry structures made with thin bricks (tiles), mortar and fast-setting cement or gypsum. This traditional construction technique has produced a large quantity of built heritage examples with an important historical value. Moreover, in the last few years, its combination with new tools for the design and analysis of masonry structures has led to a rediscovery of the technique resulting in interesting architectural pieces with a new formal language. This paper presents experimental research on tile vaults aiming at the understanding of their structural behaviour for the analysis of both built examples and new architecture. Four full-scale specimens are load-tested until failure at the laboratory, namely, two barrel vaults and two sail domes. The vaults were tested under vertical loading up to failure. Samples of the materials composing the tile vault are also tested for their characterization. The experiments supplied valuable data about the stiffness, peak loads, post-peak behaviour, damage and collapse mechanism of the tested structures.