Experimental assessment of tuff masonry performance

The evaluation of mechanical properties for the analysis of existing masonry buildings still represents a current problem, especially when retrofit interventions have to be planned on the historical-artistic heritage. Due to the huge cost of laboratory destructive tests, the need of knowledge is today often achieved through the combined use of investigations carried out with different methodologies. The actual tendency should be to increasingly privilege, to the point of almost exclusive use, non-destructive investigations, which can be easily and widely used on buildings, replacing destructive or partially destructive tests. At present, however, relationships among mechanical characteristics (modulus of elasticity, strength) to be reliably estimated using on site measurements are not available. This is especially true for natural stone masonry like those widely diffused in Southern Italy. In this context, an extensive set of experimental data obtained on yellow tuff masonry from the Campania Region is presented and discussed in this paper.