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Experts responsible for the safety evaluation of unique masonry heritage structures usually need to weigh information from various diagnosis activities before deciding the best course of action for preservation. Typical sources of valuable information are historical and in-situ surveys and inspections, minor and non-destructive testing, structural health monitoring, and structural analysis, among others. Due to the complexity of the problem and singular aspects of monuments, these decisions are challenging and often made solely on the basis of expert judgement. A systematic risk assessment procedure is proposed involving the computation of two indices to facilitate the decision-making process: an index related to the estimated risk of damage, and another to the uncertainty behind this estimation. Results from applying the procedure to several case studies are provided to demonstrate its usefulness., This research has received the financial support from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Spanish Government (MCIU), the State Agency of Research (AEI), as well as that of the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) through the SEVERUS project (Multilevel evaluation of seismic vulnerability and risk mitigation of masonry buildings in resilient historical urban centres, ref. num. RTI2018-099589-B-I00). The corresponding author gratefully acknowledges the AGAUR agency of the Generalitat de Catalunya for the nancial support of his predoctoral grant. The authors would like to thank Professor Pere Roca for providing diagnostic reports of several masonry heritage structures for this research. Besides, the authors are also grateful to Irene Josa for coming up with the acronym RISDiMaH., Peer Reviewed, Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::11 - Ciutats i Comunitats Sostenibles::11.4 - Redoblar els esforços per a protegir i salvaguardar el patrimoni cultural i natural del món, Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::11 - Ciutats i Comunitats Sostenibles, Postprint (author's final draft)

Copyright 2020 Society of Photo‑Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this publication for a fee or for commercial purposes, and modification of the contents of the publication are prohibited., Static structural health monitoring (SHM), aimed at the continuous measurement of slow-varying parameters over a long period, has been proved to be a powerful tool to support the diagnosis of masonry heritage structures. In such applications, the initial interpretation task involves the identification of evolutionary conditions from recorded data. However, this can be difficult since monitored features are influenced by environmental changes. In addition, many masonry heritage structures are characterised by a complex structural behaviour stemming from the interaction among different elements, making the task of interpreting SHM data for diagnosis very challenging. One such structure is the church of the monastery of Sant Cugat close to Barcelona, built mostly between the 12th and 15th centuries. Certain key structural parameters of the church have been monitored since 2017 with the aim of understanding the cause of visible pathologies and identifying any active deterioration mechanisms that could pose a threat to the structural integrity of the church in the future. This paper presents the application of an automated data analysis methodology to this problem. The method uses dynamic regression models to filter out components related to reversible seasonal fluctuations from measurements and automatically classifies monitored parameters into evolutionary states based on predicted evolution rates and dispersion metrics from the filtering procedure. A tool is presented which allows analysis results to be updated as new data is received. Finally, results from the proposed methodology are used for the diagnosis of the structure and their usefulness in a broader decision-making framework is discussed., This research has received _nancial support from the City Council of Sant Cugat (Ajuntament de Sant Cugat) through a project aimed at monitoring the structure of the church of the monastery of Sant Cugat (ref. num. C-10764). The authors also gratefully acknowledge the _nancial support from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Spanish Government (MCIU), the State Agency of Research (AEI), as well as the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), through the SEVERUS project (Multilevel evaluation of seismic vulnerability and risk mitigation of masonry buildings in resilient historical urban centres, ref. num. RTI2018- 099589-B-I00). Support from the AGAUR agency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the European Social Fund, in the form of a pre-doctoral grant awarded to the corresponding author is also gratefully acknowledged., Postprint (author's final draft)

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [Makoond, N, Pelà, L, Molins, C, Roca, P, Alarcón, D. Automated data analysis for static structural health monitoring of masonry heritage structures. Struct Control Health Monit. 2020; 27:e2581. https://doi.org/10.1002/stc.2581], which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/stc.2581. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving., Masonry heritage structures are often affected by slow irreversible deterioration mechanisms that can jeopardise structural stability in the foreseeable future. Static structural health monitoring (SHM), aimed at the continuous measurement of key slow-varying parameters, has the potential to identify such mechanisms at a very early stage. This can greatly facilitate the implementation of adequate preventive and remedial measures, which can be critical to ensure that such structures are preserved for generations to come. However, because monitored parameters usually experience reversible seasonal variations of the same order of magnitude as changes caused by active mechanisms, identification of the latter is often a difficult task. This paper presents a fully integrated automated data analysis procedure for complete static SHM systems utilising dynamic linear regression models to filter out the effects caused by environmental variations. The method does not only produce estimated evolution rates but also classifies monitored responses in predefined evolution states. The procedure has successfully been used to identify vulnerable areas in two important medieval heritage structures in Spain, namely, the cathedral of Mallorca and the church of the monastery of Sant Cugat., Ajuntament de Sant Cugat through a project aimed at monitoring the Monastery of Sant Cugat, ref. num. C-10764. Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports of the Spanish Government through a project aimed at studying the structural condition of Mallorca Cathedral, ref. num. 2/131400106ca - 5/030300592 EF. AGAUR agency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and European Social Fund, through a predoctoral grant awarded to the corresponding author. Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Spanish Government and European Regional Development Fund through the SEVERUS project, ref. num. RTI2018-099589-B-100., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

Macro-models are a common choice for the numerical analysis of large-scale masonry structures. Despite their efficiency in terms of pre-processing and computational cost, these strategies often result in a poor representation of cracking, not properly localized and biased by the finite element mesh orientation. This work presents a remedy to the previous shortcomings through the enhancement of the standard smeared crack approach with a crack-tracking algorithm. The smeared crack approach reduces the computational cost and ensures a computationally efficient analysis of small- and large-scale structures. The crack-tracking algorithm aids the localized representation of cracking and improves the mesh-objectivity of the numerical results. A novel crack-tracking algorithm is introduced allowing the modelling of intersecting and multi-directional cracks, which commonly occur in masonry structures under cyclic loading. At constitutive level, a simple and explicit algorithmic formulation is presented, which includes the description of irreversible deformations into an orthotropic continuum damage model. The proposed numerical model is used to simulate the response of an experimentally tested masonry wall under shear cyclic loading., Postprint (published version)

This paper proposes the use of multiple nonlinear static analyses for the seismic assessment of irregular masonry buildings without box behavior. The methodology consists in executing a series of sequential pushover analyses on the spatial model of the building by rotating the horizontal loading direction from to . The so-called multi directional pushover analysis allows a more realistic evaluation of the seismic vulnerability, since it can represent a higher number of possible failure mechanisms than in the conventional pushover analysis restricted to the two “principal” directions of the structure. The application of the methodology to a highly irregular masonry building located in Chile shows that the detected failure mechanisms are in very good agreement with those derived from nonlinear dynamic analysis, as well as with the damage experienced by the structure after the earthquake of February 27, 2010 (Mw 8.8)., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

Villa Diomede is a great roman building located on the western corner of the modern archaeological site of Pompeii, built during III century BC and discovered between 1771 and 1774 during archaeological excavations. The system is composed by three levels: the road level, the garden level, which hosts the portico structure, and the underground level. The building includes diverse types of masonry with a wide range of unit shapes, dimensions and materials (i.e. tuff, limestone, volcanic stone, clay brick etc.). Besides, an unconventional tuff masonry type was observed on some structures of the garden; it reveals inclined head joints, whose structural function is still unknown. The paper reports the numerical micro-modeling of this particular texture of masonry, where the constitutive materials (tuff units and mortar) are discretized. The main goal of the work is the assessment of inclined masonry joints as an aseismic detail compared with widespread traditional tuff running bond masonry. Micro models of masonry wallettes were created assigning a non-linear constitutive behavior, i.e. total strain crack model (with a parabolic behavior in compression and an exponential softening behavior in tension, whereas damage due to tensile cracking was modeled adopting a rotating crack model). Moreover, brittle 2D interfaces were modeled between mortar and units at inclined joints surfaces. The paper focuses on numerical prediction of compressive response of masonry models subjected to uniaxial compressive tests., Postprint (published version)

This work presents a multiscale method based on computational homogenization for the analysis of general heterogeneous thick shell structures, with special focus on periodic brick-masonry walls. The proposed method is designed for the analysis of shells whose micro-structure is heterogeneous in the in-plane directions, but initially homogeneous in the shell-thickness direction, a structural topology that can be found in single-leaf brick masonry walls. Under this assumption, this work proposes an efficient homogenization scheme where both the macro-scale and the micro-scale are described by the same shell theory. The proposed method is then applied to the analysis of out-of-plane loaded brick-masonry walls, and compared to experimental and micro-modeling results., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in International Journal of Architectural Heritage: Conservation, Analysis, and Restoration on 2016, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/15583058.2015.1077906, This paper presents an experimental study aimed at the characterization of the mechanical behaviour of existing masonry. The research proposes a methodology based on the in-situ core drilling of existing masonry members, made of clay brick and low-strength lime mortar. The obtained cylindrical samples, with different diameters, are tested in the laboratory to derive the compression and frictional response of the composite material and the components (units, mortar). The paper addresses the main issues related to the extraction of cylindrical specimens, the testing and the interpretation of results. The proposed minor destructive technique is suitable for existing masonry structures and especially for those of the built cultural heritage, since a direct estimation of the mechanical parameters can be obtained without damaging excessively the historical structure., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

It's estimated that 90% of the severe casualties that would result from an earthquake on the Wasatch front are directly related to unreinforced masonry structures. Salt Lake City's Emergency Management Team wants you to "Fix the Bricks."

It's estimated that 90% of the severe casualties that would result from an earthquake on the Wasatch front are directly related to unreinforced masonry structures. Salt Lake City's Emergency Management Team wants you to "Fix the Bricks."

Assessing the collapse load for complex masonry structures, such as historic monuments, is a very hard task and looking for a reliable and suitable procedure considering all the available numerical techniques is still under debate. One interesting and simple approach for wide modelling capabilities is based on the discretization of the masonry structure as a system of truss elements with appropriate constitutive law. According to this procedure, the inclusion of reinforcement elements is a simple operation of adding bars representing the reinforcement net. This approach presents several favourable features. First of all, after cracking, masonry behaves as a system of thrust wedges which are very similar to a reticular frame. Secondly, shear and flexural mechanisms are clearly distinguished but derive from a single constitutive law valid for all the elements composing the model. Finally, some specific problems, such as multiple leaf walls or curved shells, can be solved in the same way as ordinary in-plane loaded walls. Initially, some very simple representation rules needed to construct the equivalent reticular model of common masonry structures are presented in detail. Some updated topics, such as adding FRP reinforcement to masonry models are also addressed. Next, the results obtained for some experimental tests are compared with those obtained by means of several numerical simulations, including the procedure proposed in this paper. Finally, some interesting conclusions are stated, showing that the reticular simple model presented in this paper produces very good results., Postprint (published version)