Abstract
Bonding courses, also called leveling courses, are a universal feature of Roman architecture. This recognizable technique of the Roman builders spans the ancient empire from Great Britain to Turkey. Even though this technique is essentially ubiquitous, the full extent of its structural functionality remains in question. The literature is far from being unanimous. Some sources claim that bonding courses were originally used to give a level finish at the end of each stage of construction, resulting in potential lines of cleavage, and thus being detrimental in the design. Contradicting these ideas, others have suggested that bonding courses are advantageous because they help resist crack propagation and foundation settlement. The aim of this paper is to study the bonding courses from an engineering perspective and contribute to a better understanding of their structural functionality. This interdisciplinary work uses a combination of Finite Element Modeling (FEM) and Distinct Element Modeling (DEM) to simulate structural response of bonding courses to a variety of scenarios, including dead load, lateral loads, and differential settlement. Important properties of FDEM are a possibility to model discontinuous (jointed) structures and to implement an explicit time-step in the analysis. Enabling jointed structures to be properly simulated, this approach is proper for masonry where the stones are mechanically much stronger than the mortar joints. To ensure historical accuracy and rigorous engineering analysis, this project is realized in collaboration between the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Princeton University and the Institute for Mediterranean Archaeology.
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Acknowledgements
This work was completed as part of the Itasca Educational Partnership under the mentorship of Dr. Jim Hazzard without whose guidance, this paper would not have been possible. An additionally thank you to Dr. Mark Christianson at Itasca who provided pivotal insights into the simulations. This work was supported by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Dean’s Fund for Innovation at Princeton. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1656466. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Additionally, thanks to Max Cardillo for inspiring this topic choice, Sophia Feist for supplementary background research, and Rachel Coe-Scharff for hel** to develop the code to generate the forms quickly.
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Napolitano, R., Lansing, L., Glisic, B. (2019). Understanding the Function of Roman Bonding Courses: A Numerical Approach. In: Aguilar, R., Torrealva, D., Moreira, S., Pando, M.A., Ramos, L.F. (eds) Structural Analysis of Historical Constructions. RILEM Bookseries, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99441-3_193
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