Stability of ancient masonry towers: Stress redistribution due to drying, carbonation, and creep

Extending the analysis of the evolution of pore humidity and carbonation presented in a preceding paper by Ferretti and Baz˘ant, this paper analyzes the redistribution in time of vertical normal stresses across the multiple-leaf wall of ancient towers, using the example of collapsed Pavia Tower. It is shown that stress redistribution due to nonuniform shrinkage and nonuniform creep across the wall, including the additional redistribution due to cracking, produces in the masonry cladding of the wall very large compressive stresses that reach, after centuries, the level of compression strength of the cladding.