Numerical Study on Stability of Japanese Castle Masonry Wall

Japanese Castle masonry walls constructed from the end of sixteen century to the middle of seventeen century hold a historical heritage in the construction culture and are famous worldwide for their uniqueness with mortar-less construction. Present investigations on these walls have shown bulging at various locations and the engineering evaluation on the wall stability needs to be urgently required. Based on this viewpoint, this paper presents the FEM analysis results on the stability and deformation behavior with parametric analyses on Osaka Castle masonry wall. It is found that the cobble plays a significant role in reducing the stresses of stone wall and that the masonry wall structure ratio adds stability by the arching effect action on the masonry wall.