YIC2025

The structural behaviour of Crinkle Cranke walls

  • Lai, Matteo (Università degli Studi di Cagliari)
  • Paris, Vittorio (Università degli Studi di Bergamo)
  • Reccia, Emanuele (Università degli Studi di Cagliari)

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The structural features of Crinckle Crankle walls are a topic of fascination. These impressive, corrugated structures portrayed the country in East Anglia (England), where they were largely constructed between the 17th and 19th centuries to serve purposes such as enclosing orchards or as garden walls. Referred to as Crinckle Crankle walls, many of these distinctive structures still stand in Suffolk and Hampshire. This particular construction technique, often credited to Dutch engineers, involves assembling a sinuous form that increases bending stiffness and enhances the wall’s ability to withstand horizontal forces. As a result, craftsmen were able to construct slender walls using just a single row of bricks, eliminating the need for traditional supports or buttresses. This discussion aims to shed light on the structural capabilities of these walls while changing the wave curvature. Therefore, a parametric analysis was performed using five samples of the modelled wall. Besides, the analyses are carried out with a hollow brick texture, which involves less use of bricks. The walls will be analyzed using Discrete Element Method (DEM) analysis; the ultimate collapse loads and load-displacement curves are reported for each case. Additionally, considerations will be made regarding their load-bearing capacity and security evaluations when subjected to dynamic loads.