Foundation settlement analysis of Fort Sumter National Monument: Model development and predictive assessment

•Experimentally substantiated numerical models aid in infrastructure management.•Sagging type foundation settlements are the most damaging to the fort’s casemates.•Crack propagation predictions provide a qualitative measure of structural damage.•Uncertainty analysis reveals the importance accuracy of model input parameters.

This study investigates the mechanisms by which a masonry vaulted structure responds to settlement of supports considering a wide range of possible settlement scenarios through a numerical model substantiated with experimental evidence and on-site evaluations. The simulation based investigation of settlement induced damage is completed on the Fort Sumter, SC, where the numerical model is developed through a multi-faceted approach utilizing field investigations including material testing of specimens, three-dimensional laser scanning of fort’s geometry, and dynamic measurements of relative movement between adjacent structural components. The poorly known model input parameters are substantiated with comparisons against measured dynamic characteristics of the fort, and the remaining uncertainties in the input parameters are propagated to the model output to obtain a probabilistic evaluation of the fort’s behavior under various settlement scenarios.