Issues about the Determination of a Mechanical Model for Masonry Analysis

The work aims to describe the issue of the approach related to structural problems, both for valuable and minor manufacts existing in the Italian historical town centers. The heterogeneity shown by these constructive typologies should coincide with some heterogeneity of the structural approach, but this is not always feasible, so computational processes and a strict application of the norms are often used in automatically. A representative case, as an example of the above-mentioned kinds of buildings (which are valuable, but not so much as to require a tailored intervention that takes into account the whole constructive history and the changes over the time), is shown. Ricciardelli palace (or Palazzo Ricciardelli) presents a great difficulty as to the structural intervention, but the approach used was a "classical engineer approach", formulated on the basis of the new computing tools and the new constructive norms. The restoration and the consolidation of this artifact have been well conducted by technicians, but the result is an invasive intervention that doesn't respect the original structural configuration of the construction. So the paper explains and discusses some investigation methodologies, alternative to an elastic analysis, which could be used in these cases, with the awareness that they are not completely exhaustive and far far away from the determination of a general formulation for a “unique model”, which can be representative of the masonry material, as well as from a definition that catalogues all its several features.