Amirkabir University of Technology Amirkabir Journal of Civil Engineering 2588-297X 55 4 2023 06 22 Experimental and Analytical Study of the Effect of Skewed Angle on the Bearing Capacity of Semi-circular Brick Vaults Experimental and Analytical Study of the Effect of Skewed Angle on the Bearing Capacity of Semi-circular Brick Vaults 911 926 5089 10.22060/ceej.2023.21051.7606 FA Saeid Sinaei Department of Civil Engineering, NajafAbad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran Esmaeel Izadi Zaman Abadi Department of Civil Engineering, NajafAbad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran 0000-0002-1005-3101 Seyed Jalil Hoseini Department of Civil Engineering, NajafAbad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran Journal Article 2022 01 30 <span style="letter-spacing: .05pt;">Covering spaces has always been one of the main issues in architectural engineering. Barrel vault is one of the cover types used in traditional structures. In this paper, the effect of skewed angle on the bearing capacity of a semicircular brick vault has been examined by the experimental and numerical study. The Experimental studies have been performed in two parts: determining the properties of materials and determining the bearing capacity of the vault. Due to laboratory limitations, scaled models of materials and structures are made used. The loading of the specimens is the gravitational force with a constant rate in the middle of the span is assumed to be displacement-control. In the following, the nonlinear finite element model related to the barrel vault is developed and validated based on the Willam-Warnke failure criterion parameters. Finally, to investigate the behavior of skewed semi-circular vaults the different angles and aspect ratios is studied by analytical and parametric models. The important behavioral parameters studied in this research are failure load, maximum displacement, and also the behavioral mechanism of skewed vaults in comparison with non-skewed vaults. The results indicate that in all models, the skewed vault has a lower bearing capacity than the non-skewed vault. The maximum drop in bearing capacity due to skew occurs up to the skewed angle of 30 degrees and for larger skewed values, the sensitivity of the structural behavioral parameters to skew decreases. So that for the vault with the aspect ratio of 0.5, with an increase in the angle of skew from zero to 30 degrees, the bearing capacity of the vault decreases 58% and 18.74 for increase from 30° to 45°.</span> <span style="letter-spacing: .05pt;">Covering spaces has always been one of the main issues in architectural engineering. Barrel vault is one of the cover types used in traditional structures. In this paper, the effect of skewed angle on the bearing capacity of a semicircular brick vault has been examined by the experimental and numerical study. The Experimental studies have been performed in two parts: determining the properties of materials and determining the bearing capacity of the vault. Due to laboratory limitations, scaled models of materials and structures are made used. The loading of the specimens is the gravitational force with a constant rate in the middle of the span is assumed to be displacement-control. In the following, the nonlinear finite element model related to the barrel vault is developed and validated based on the Willam-Warnke failure criterion parameters. Finally, to investigate the behavior of skewed semi-circular vaults the different angles and aspect ratios is studied by analytical and parametric models. The important behavioral parameters studied in this research are failure load, maximum displacement, and also the behavioral mechanism of skewed vaults in comparison with non-skewed vaults. The results indicate that in all models, the skewed vault has a lower bearing capacity than the non-skewed vault. The maximum drop in bearing capacity due to skew occurs up to the skewed angle of 30 degrees and for larger skewed values, the sensitivity of the structural behavioral parameters to skew decreases. So that for the vault with the aspect ratio of 0.5, with an increase in the angle of skew from zero to 30 degrees, the bearing capacity of the vault decreases 58% and 18.74 for increase from 30° to 45°.</span> https://ceej.aut.ac.ir/article_5089_12b668a1ada1828ba795332f419d4ef7.pdf