A Study on Structural Characteristics of Stone Masonry Wall Structure

It is hard to predict the mechanical characteristics of discontinuous stone masonry structures with the use of by the static analysis method, because of irregularity of face stones and also due to randomness of backfill materials. Inversely, one can estimate the mechanical characteristics by comparing the natural frequencies between measured from the field tests and computed from the analytical models. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness and confidence of the computational modeling method of ancient stone arch bridges in Korea and to find the factors influencing their dynamic characteristics. The results revealed that the rigidity of spandrel walls and backfill materials are the most important factors influencing the natural frequencies of stone arch bridges, which are the critical for the stability of the stone arch structure.