MECHANICHAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SOME ROMAN ADOBE MASONRIES AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF SUASA (AN)

The adobe constructive technique has undoubted advantages with respect to other modern constructive techniques, as comfort for the living spaces and the respect of the external environment. In terms of thermal performances [1-­‐4] the adobe technique allows good thermal insulation capacities of the buildings. Some studies have investigated also the choice of the optimal type of clay for adobe bricks with or without the use of stabilizers [5-­‐6]. These can be natural or artificial [7-­‐9] and they influence the technological and mechanical properties.
Recent studies [10-­‐13] on the mechanical performances of the earthen bricks have mainly focused their investigations on the influence of the quantity and type of constituents on these properties. In [10] it is shown that the utilization of plastic fibres increases the compressive strength in comparison to the use of straw fibres. Some researches highlighted that the increase of straw fibres decrease the compressive strength [11-­‐12] and the weight of the specimens, but the strain capacity raises. Another study [13] showed that the compressive strength raises with the decrement of the aspect ratio, namely, the ratio between the height and the thickness of the sample.
The determination of the mechanical behaviour of the adobe constructive system is also at the base of the preservation and of the repair of the cultural heritage that is made by this constructive technique.
In this paper we summarize the researches which we have been done on this subject. More details are reported in [14, 15].