Experimental and FEM Investigation of Cob Walls under Compression

Figure 6

Compressive stress-strain diagrams for tested specimens. On each curve, the point related to the formation of the first capillary cracks and those related to the formation of diffuse cracks are reported. The vertical compression strains are computed by averaging the vertical displacements measured by the two vertical LVDTs. Post-peak behaviour (dotted lines) cannot be considered as completely reliable since test was force controlled.