Numerical pre-diction of the seismic behaviour of a masonry vault mock-up using the NOSA-ITACA code

Masonry vaults are widely employed in ancient constructions and play a crucial role in their static and dynamic response. Even if they are designed to withstand gravity and dead loads, these structural elements must also resist dynamic excitations caused by traffic and earthquakes; hence, the knowledge of their behaviour still requires in-depth analyses from experimental and numerical points of view. Within the framework of the SERA.TA project (Seismolo-gy and Earthquake Engineering Research Infrastructure Alliance for Europe), a blind pre-diction contest has been organized to assess the numerical analyses capability to predict the seismic response of a 1:1 scale model of masonry cross vault, realized and tested at LNEC laboratory (Portugal). This paper describes the analyses conducted on a numerical model of the vault created by NOSA-ITACA, a code developed in-house by ISTI-CNR for the analysis and calibration of masonry structures. The experimental accelerations, displacements, and crack patterns have been compared with the predicted numerical ones achieved in the blind pre-diction phase, by performing a nonlinear dynamic analysis of the un-strengthened finite element model of the vault