Limit analysis for three-dimensional stone masonry structures with friction

The paper deals with the limit analysis of structures made of rigid blocks interacting through no-tension and frictional contact surfaces performed using mathematical programming methods. The presence of friction makes the problem non-linear and non-convex. It shown that a proper choice of the initial guess for the variables of the non-linear program enables the convergence to the optimal solution. The initial variables are evaluated as the outputs of a linear program corresponding to the limit analysis of the same assembly of blocks with dilatancy along the joints, instead of friction. Various analyses show the validity of the procedure and the effectiveness of the limit analysis approach for studying the collapse behaviour of real three-dimensional stone masonry structures.