SAS401T PROJECT 2

ARCHES IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

1. Abstract

Objectives and aim

This paper contains a study of the importance of arches in structures and the analysis and
application of arches in the field of structural engineering. The paper also reports on the
history and development of arches.

Materials and methods

There are many materials that are used in the construction of arches. Choosing which
materials to use depends mostly on the client and the architect. The engineer, chooses the
method of design and sometimes recommend the construction method. Many design- and
construction methods have been studied and developed but none are perfect and flawless.
Choosing and applying a method correctly is the difference between success and failure.

Findings

Arches are structurally strong and make long spanning structures such as bridges or dam
walls structurally strong and stable. They are some of the most favoured features in ancient
buildings such as cathedrals and also small bridges. They can be constructed from almost
any material. The analysis and design process of arches is made easy with modern design
technology but still requires accurate data interpretation by the engineer.

Conclusion / recommendations

Arches are strong structural components that are particularly strong in compression. Even
though they are recommended for providing simple solutions for long-spanning
requirements, they are not well represented in study literature of educational institutions.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
This study done on arches consists of information to give an understanding of what arches
are, why are they used, how the design process works and why they are important. Before
one can understand the concept of arches, some basic arch terms need to be known: (refer to
Figure 1 below)

Extrados: The curve which bounds the upper edge of the arch.

Intrados: The curve which bounds the lower edge of the arch. The distinction between soffit
and intrados is that the intrados is a line, while the soffit is a surface,

Crown: The apex of the arch's extrados. In symmetrical arches, the crown is at the mid-span,

Rise: The maximum height of the arch soffit above the level of its spring line,

Soffit: The surface of an arch or vault at the intrados,

Span: The horizontal clear dimension between abutments,

Springing: The point where the skewback intersects the intrados,

Springer: The first voussoir from a skewback.

Spring Line: A horizontal line which intersects the springing.

Voussoir: One masonry unit of an arch.

 Fig. 1 Basic terminology of a masonry arch

The main characteristics of arches that are commonly known through the construction field
are that horizontal thrust is present at the supports. The horizontal force is induced there
because of un-yielding supports that prevent the curved beams from straightening under
vertical loads. The horizontal force thrusts toward the arch and produces compression stresses
at all sections of the arch. Another characteristic of arch action is that each section is subjected
to a direct thrust. And also, at all sections, the static Bending Moments of the load are
considerably reduced by the Bending Moment due to horizontal thrust.

1.2 Research problems

Arches are neglected by the civil engineering curricula of most universities and institutions.
Arch structures and the analysis thereof are challenges that will come across any engineer’s
path and should be taught in Structural Analysis, a course that is obligatory in all civil
engineering programs, but statistics show that an average of only 2% of the texts in text
books and notes are dedicated to arches. It is therefore difficult to find relevant information
regarding the study. Many resources’ information is more or less the same or the documents
are not rich in information.

1.3 Aim and objective of study

This study was done to give the reader a background summary of structural arches. The aim
is to gather key information for the study. The information has to be relevant, easy
understandable, easy to interpret and easy to process into a short and understandable report.
The objective is to give the reader an informative quick understanding of arches with focus
on the materials available for construction of arches. The different materials provide
different advantages and also create challenges regarding the construction process.

1.4 Scope of study

Arches are preferred by architects to add beauty and elegance to the aesthetics of buildings.
It became customary to add arches for the openings not only outside the building but also
inside above e.g. door openings. But these are just examples of small arches. Arches are
effectively used in dome-shaped buildings, cathedrals, bridges, etc. This aesthetic
preference from door frames to bridges becomes a challenge to structural engineers with
respect to the dimensional design aspect. Small or big, the design process and the
challenges it beholds are quite the same right through. Many arches used today are non-
structural and are built purely for aesthetics. The curvature of arches combines the
advantages of bending and compression. The advantages of these mechanisms combined
contribute to resist external loads normal to the middle line of the arch. Arches can be built
with materials that cannot withstand tension because they can resist normal forces by
developing only compression. There are many naturally formed arches and are typically
formed in places with erosion. Arches also inspired and evolved construction for mankind.
They played a dominant role as construction elements in the Roman Empire. They still exist
after thousands of years and examples thereof are found in aqueducts, buildings and bridges
over narrow rivers. Some of the most famous arch designs are found in famous Cathedrals
and Castles. Today, arches are still a very efficient element of design in the structural
engineering field. They are commonly present in concrete as well as in steel bridges, in arch
dams, and in industrial and commercial buildings.

1.5 Limitations of study

Although arches provide a solution for long spanning requirements, they have limitations.
The horizontal forces acting upon an arch can be high, and therefore, care must be taken in
the design process to prevent failure at the connection between the arch and the support.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Proof of establishment

3.0 MATERIALS AND METHODS

3.1 Materials:

Arches can be constructed with various materials like masonry, reinforced concrete,
structural steel, timber, etc. Masonry is one of the oldest materials used for constructing
arches. A brick masonry arch found in the ruins of Ur in Mesopotamia dates back to 1400
B.C. In the modern era of today, brick arches are used in construction to span over wall
openings and for adding aesthetics to the appearance. More commonly used are reinforced
concrete and structural steel for arches in long spanning bridges.

3.1.1 Brick Arch

When designing a brick arch, one must consider whether the arch is structural or non-
structural. That is, will the arch be required to transfer vertical loads to abutments or will it
be fully supported by a steel angle. There are two structural requirements necessary for a
brick arch to carry vertical loads sufficiently. The first is that the arch must be able to carry
vertical loads and transfer them to the abutments. The second is that the abutments have to
resist the vertical load and lateral thrust from the arch. If either of the arch or the abutment
is deficient, the arch must be considered as non-structural. Thus, both the arch and its
tributary load must be fully supported by a sufficient steel angle or specifically designed
plates. Another option is to use reinforcement to increase the strength of either or both the
arch and the abutments. Three failure modes are common of an unreinforced arch. They are
rotation of the arch about the abutment, sliding of the arch at the skewback, and crushing of
the masonry. Rotation starts to occur when tension develops in the arch. By increasing the
depth or the rise of the arch, tension can be reduced, and if tension does develop in the arch,
tensile forces can be resisted by adding reinforcing steel. Sliding of the arch will depend on
the angle of skewback relative to the horizontal axis and the vertical load acting upon the
arch. To avoid sliding at the skewback, reinforcement can be added. This will also prevent
shear at the skewback. Crushing is the result of the compressive strength of the masonry not
being able to withstand the compressive stresses in the arch. If compressive stresses are too
large, the arch must be redesigned with a shorter span or a greater arch depth. Compression
failure is a common occurrence.

3.1.2 Reinforced Concrete Arches

Centuries ago, small bridge arches were constructed with masonry because at that time neither
concrete nor reinforcement was invented. Present-day experts have determined that those
arches are the invert of their Bending Moment diagrams wherein there is no tension in the
member. They established that by inverting the Bending Moment diagram of the arch, it can
be designed in such a way that the member will have no tension but only compression forces.
The shape of the member can be circular, parabola, or an ellipse. Concrete have a very high
compression strength which makes it a good material for arches because arches essentially
work in compression. Since the discovery of concrete and the reinforcing thereof, the span of
bridges increased greatly. The first concrete arch bridge that spanned more than 100m, was
built more than 100 years ago. And since then, the longest arch bridge in the world, Wanxian
Yangtze River Bridge in China, spans 420m. Construction methods for reinforced concrete
arches can be very expensive. The engineer should design the concrete arch while keeping in
mind which resources are available, and which construction method suites the area best
economically. Concrete for arches can be cast monolithically or pre-cast. Concrete arches
may also be built either with plain concrete or with reinforced concrete. But it is important
that plain concrete arches should never be used unless they are built directly on solid rock
foundation. Reinforcement on the other hand is specifically necessary for flat arches, because
the effect of rib shortening and because the change of temperature can be especially large.

3.1.3 Steel arches

Steel arches are popular because it presents much appreciated aesthetics of curves elements in
contemporary architecture. When the main reaction force is compressive, the mechanics of
the arch is sometimes favourable. Production is also efficient because standard sections can be
rolled to the correct size before construction. Even though this is still a lengthy process, it
should be much more time-saving because curing time of concrete is limited to the
foundations. Designing is also made easier due to advanced computer based design tools.
When designing steel arches, the objective is sometimes to construct large spans with relative
low self-weight. To achieve this, the main concerns in the design process is governed by the
stability phenomena like plate-, overall-, local- and lateral-torsion buckling. Therefore
emphasis should be placed on stability of the structure.
3.2 Methods
Many techniques have been developed over the years which allow treatment of very large-
scale plastic arch-truss layout optimization problems incorporating multiple load cases, self
weight and practical nodal stability constraints to investigate the effectiveness of these in
practice. No matter which method the engineer chooses, he/she has to ensure that the correct
data is gathered and the input thereof is correct and absolutely accurate as possible because
even though some modern methods of analysis are powerful, they can be complicated and
mistakes can easily be made. If data input is not meaningful and accurate, they may produce
useless and even absurd results. The data should be collected from field tests and laboratory
tests. For situations where the data are incomplete, the design engineer may supplement these
data by referring to similar projects with similar conditions. When some data is unavailable,
estimations may be made by using conservative engineering judgment. This intuitive
judgement may lead to overly conservative designs which could lead to very expensive and
uneconomical designs.

Many computer programs are based on the stiffness matrix method. According to this method,
the arch is seen as an assemblage of small elements that are interconnected at a finite number
of joints. As the number of joints increases, the accuracy of the results also increases. The
moment of inertia of each element is assumed as constant. A local stiffness matrix is obtained
for each small element and put together to obtain an overall structural stiffness matrix of the
complete arch. This is referred to as the global axis. The overall structural stiffness matrix of
the whole arch is then modified for the displacement boundary conditions. When arches are
assumed to be hinged at both ends, the solution of the equilibrium equations will result in 3
displacement components at each joint. The internal normal force, shear force and bending
moment for each element is calculated from the displacement and the local element stiffness.
The bending moment values are then plotted on the tension side of the arch. This means that
the positive and negative values of bending moments will correspond to the tensile stresses at
the top and bottom fibres of the arch. Even though the bending moment’s sign is reversed
through an inflection point of zero value, the normal force diagram’s sign remains as usual.
This indicates that a compressive normal force still acts along the centre line of the arch
though with decreasing values, as the top of the arch is approached.
Loading of arches are the same as other beams, but they are interpreted differently. The loads
may be live loads or dead loads from floors, roofs, walls and other structural elements. The
live loads are applied as point loads or as uniform loads fully or partially distributed. The
dead load of say a brick wall above an arch may be assumed to be the weight of the wall
contained within a triangle immediately above the opening. The sides of this assumed triangle
should be taken as 45-degree angles relative to the base. Therefore, the height will be half of
the span. Triangular loads like this may be assumed to be the same as a uniformly distributed
load of 1/3 times the triangular load. Superimposed uniform loads above this triangle may be
carried out by the arching action of the masonry wall itself. Uniform, live and dead loads that
occur below the triangle’s apex are applied directly on the arch for design purposes. Smaller
arches should not have heavy concentrated loads acting upon them.

4.0 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Arches provide an obvious solution for long spanning requirements. They can be
constructed from almost all construction type materials. Arches can be analysed as a
straight beam. Many computer design programs are available that can break the arch up into
small elements that are analysed separately, resulting in better accuracy.

5.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Arches are a magnificent characteristic of some of the oldest buildings that are still standing
today. This is already proof that arches are a very strong construction option for most
structural support beams, especially when long spans are required.

Even though the design process is made easy with modern technology, the engineer still
bears the risk of inaccurate interpretation and use of data. The material used must
correspond with the architect’s vision, but should still be specified, by the engineer,
according to design codes and standards.

6.0 ACKNOWELEDGEMENT
6th World Congresses of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization

Rio de Janeiro, 30 May - 03 June 2005, Brazil

Internet references:

http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra2/bcoreports/BCO01-02.pdf

http://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online_reports/pdf/00-r11.pdf

http://www.arch-bridges.cn/attach/07/821_828.pdf

http://www.usbr.gov/pmts/hydraulics_lab/pubs/EM/EM19.pdf

http://www.deldot.gov/information/pubs_forms/manuals/bridge_design/pdf/bdm-07-
culvert-design.pdf

http://themasonryarch.com/products.html

7.0 APPENDIX

Photo The Kashirajima Bridge