Masonry wall deterioration problem: A possible probabilistic approach

From the mathematical point of view, masonry decay caused by aggressive environments may be formulated as a reliability problem of a system subjected to a random sequence of aggressive events over time. This problem was dealt by the authors with reference to non-stationary probabilistic models. The failure probability function Pf (t) has been defined in material service lifetime, , terms. The behaviour of masonry components, bricks, stones and mortars subjected to a simulated critical environment and to a real aggressive environment was analysed. In particular the failure mechanism by continuous delamination was taken into account and the extent and rate of deterioration was measured along the time by a laser profilometer. This deterioration process was found to be a renewal process and a Weibull distributions seems to be suitable to interpret it.