The properties of arches under loading especially for historical buildings

Some ancient iranian monumental buildings, mosques and another historical structures which had built in various zones in iran present the covering structure carried by a system of round arches, built up adopting multiple-leaves masonry technology. Buttresses resist to the lateral thrust of the arches. But tresses can undergo significant displacements such as a strenght member of structure. As a consequence, the geometric features of the arches are modified, and many cracks open. The global static conditions of the structure are compromised, especially when there are losses of contact and even local separations between the masonry leaves of the arches, as it can be observed in. this paper presents the results of a numeric modelling of an arch assumed with reference to these structures, the results indicate the progressive loss of bearing capacity due to the buttresses displacement and the worst contact characteristics of the layers. Also some possibilities for future development about using of arches in structures are listed at the end.