A case study of the structural behavior of a catalan bricks masonry vault

Numerical validation of LRPH behaviour by FEM analysis

LRPH connection is a special steel device mainly usable to join beam elements of plane or spatial steel frames. It is identified as Limited Resistance Rigid Perfectly Plastic Hinge and it is covered by patent n. 102017000088597 at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development and identified in the International Patent System with the number PCT/IB2018/055766. The fundamental innovations of this device are the mutual independence of their own resistance and stiffness features and the respect of assigned constraints related to the elastic and limit behavior of the joined elements. Within the frame structural scheme, the device plays the role of a rigid perfectly plastic hinge, and it is consti…