A strategy for material characterisation of multi-wythe masonry Infrastructure: Preliminary study

The present work aims at providing insights on the material characterization of multi-wythe masonry infrastructure, in particular exploring a through-thickness effect of mechanical properties and benchmarking the core testing as an efficient slightly-destructive testing method. An experimental campaign was carried out to characterize shear, compressive and bond properties of a 1.2-m thick bridge's pillar constructed in 1882 in the city of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Both cores and rectangular samples (e.g. prisms, triplets, couplets) were extracted across different locations in the wall thickness to evaluate the effect of exposure to environment conditions and to verify the capability of core testing methods. Results show that the masonry close to the water side (external) showed higher values of elastic modulus and lower values of flexural bond properties with respect to masonry inside the pillar. As for the capability of core testing on multi-wythe masonry, generally cores would present similar compressive/shear properties compared with rectangular samples. Besides, bond patterns and dimensions of cores showed negligible effect on compressive properties; However, this needs to be extensively verified by considering other masonry typologies. Overall, the study provides a first insight on the mechanical properties of multi-wythe masonry urban infrastructure and knowledge regarding the sampling and testing strategy for these structures. In turn, this will increase the knowledge on multi-wythe masonry, which is limited in literature, and will support the assessment of many infrastructure in typical Dutch canal cities by providing input for calculation methods.