Resistance of natural stone masonry wallettes under centred and eccentric compressive loading: Experimental and numerical approaches

Masonry walls are typically subjected to eccentric compressive loadings in common buildings. However, the design of walls towards this type of solicitation remains very empirical, often leading to oversizing the structure. This is especially true for natural stone masonry, for which experimental data are quite scarce. This paper presents an experimental campaign on 15 natural stone masonry wallettes subjected to centred and eccentric compression until failure. Different values of the eccentricity of the load, ranging from h/12 to h/4 (where h is the thickness of the wallette) were investigated, highlighting the noticeable effect of such a value on the compressive failure load. During the tests, the displacements were recorded by a Digital Image Correlation system, providing insights into the different failure mechanisms that depend on the value of the eccentricity. The so-obtained experimental failure loads are then compared to the predictions of Eurocode 6. Finally, a finite-element yield-design analysis of these tests is proposed which shows that this modelling framework is suitable to find the ultimate bearing capacity of a masonry wallette.