Collapse mechanisms of masonry arches with settled springing

Over last centuries, masonry arch has been one of the most used basic structural systems in buildings and infrastructures. One of the most interesting current issues relates safety assessment of existing built heritage, which is often subject to deterioration phenomena. For such reasons, this work aims at analyzing the applicability of classical limit analysis for investigating the safety of masonry arches subject to springing settlements. An extensive parametric analysis is performed considering different geometrical configurations and settlement directions. Then, analytical predictions are compared with results from experimental tests and FEM numerical analyses. Such results confirm the reliability of limit analysis when dealing with the safety assessment of settled masonry arches.