This book provides an overview to those most important modern and traditional methods of masonry analysis that are able to capture the discrete internal built-up of masonry structures. Such methods are available in a wide variety today – from computational packages based on classical graphical statics techniques through discrete element methods or the most sophisticated no-tension semi-continuum models – , and this book reviews their theoretical foundations, as well as their advantages and preferable fields of application, also calling the attention on their limitations so that the reader could build up a critical view of the choices they have when attacking a masonry mechanics problem. The book gives a basis for the readers to become able to develop their own methods, inspired either by classical graphical statics, or by any modern technique they find promising.

The experience of people working with different perspectives in different fields of masonry modeling, from mathematics to applied engineering and practice, is brought together in this book. It presents both the theoretical background and an overview of the state-of-the-art in static and dynamic masonry modeling.

The Discrete Element Method (DEM) has emerged as a solution to predicting load capacities of masonry structures. As one of many numerical methods and computational solutions being applied to evaluate masonry structures, further research on DEM tools and methodologies is essential for further advancement. Computational Modeling of Masonry Structures Using the Discrete Element Method explores the latest digital solutions for the analysis and modeling of brick, stone, concrete, granite, limestone, and glass block structures. Focusing on critical research on mathematical and computational methods for masonry analysis, this publication is a pivotal reference source for scholars, engineers, consultants, and graduate-level engineering students.

This volume contains eight contributions on the common theme of masonry construction. The publication coincides with the retirement of Dr Jacques Heyman from his Professorship of Engineering in the University of Cambridge, and Headship of the University's Engineering Department. It is entirely appropriate to have a collection of papers in honour of Professor Heyman at this time; for he has made signal contributions to our understanding of masonry construction over the past thirty years or so. It is no exaggeration to say that he has radically changed the way in which engineers think about masonry structures, particularly in relation to the old ecclesiastical buildings and bridges. Indeed it is hard to imagine what this subject would be like today in the absence of Professor Heyman's seminal papers.

III European Conference on Computational Mechanics: Solids, Structures and Coupled Problem in Engineering Computational Mechanics in Solid, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering is today a mature science with applications to major industrial projects. This book contains the edited version of the Abstracts of Plenary and Keynote Lectures and Papers, and a companion CD-ROM with the full-length papers, presented at the III European Conference on Computational Mechanics: Solids, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering (ECCM-2006), held in the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal 5th - 8th June 2006. The book reflects the state-of-art of Computation Mechanics in Solids, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering and it includes contributions by the world most active researchers in this field.

Many historically and artistically important masonry buildings of the world’s architecturalheritageareindireneedofmaintenanceandrestoration.Inorder tooptimizesuchoperationsintermsofcost-e?ectiveness,architecturalimpact andstatice?ectiveness,accuratemodelsofthestructuralbehaviorofmasonry constructions are invaluable. The ultimate aim of such modeling is to obtain important information, such as the stress ?eld, and to estimate the extent of cracking and its evolution when the structure is subjected to variations in both boundary and loading conditions. Although masonry has been used in building for centuries, it is only - centlythatconstitutivemodelsandcalculationtechniqueshavebeenavailable that enable realistic description of the static behavior of structures made of this heterogeneous material whose response to tension is fundamentally d- ferent from that to compression. Important insights on the mechanical behavior of masonry arches and vaults come from as far back as Leonardo [10], Hooke [58], Poleni [92] and many other authors (see [47], [9] and [10] for detailed references). Castigliano, in his famous paper on the Mosca bridge [23], and Signorini, in his studies on masonry beams [97], [98], showed both the possibility and necessity of taking into account the weak tensile strength of masonry material.

The book aims to provide an overview of the state of the art on the mechanics of arches and masonry structures. It is addressed to an international audience, arising from the international context in which the Associazione Edoardo Benvenuto has carried out its activities in recent years, under the honorary presidency of Jacques Heyman. The book belongs to the collection Between Mechanics and Architecture, born in 1995 from the collaboration of several renowned scholars, including Edoardo Benvenuto (P. Radelet-de Grave, E. Benvenuto (eds.), Entre Mécanique et Architecture / Between Mechanics and Architecture, Birkhäuser, Basel 1995).