Effects of the dilatancy of joints and of the size of the building blocks on the mechanical behavior of masonry structures

International audienceThe effect of the dilatancy of masonry interfaces and of the size of the building blocks on the strength of masonry structures is quantified herein. The study focuses mainly on out-of-plane loadings, which can appear due to various factors such as wind, earthquakes or explosions. The analysis is performed using the Discrete Element Method (DEM), which allows to access directly various micro-mechanical parameters, such as the joints dilatancy angle and the size of the building blocks. Detailed DEM numerical models of existing experimental configurations are presented. The numerical results are first compared and validated towards the experimental observations and then they are used to derive qualitative and quantitative conclusions regarding the effects of joints dilatancy and blocks size. It is shown that dilatancy plays an important role on the overall strength of masonry even under low confinement. The size of the blocks is also an important parameter that needs to be considered in the modeling of masonry structures

Joint estimation of technology choice and technical efficiency: an application to organic and conventional dairy farming

Production function, Inefficiency, Endogeneity, Maximum likelihood, C23, D24, D83, O30, Q12,

Dynamic Analysis of Production

A parable of economic life is that some factors can adjust rapidly while others adjust slowly in a given time scale. Focusing on production analysis in the dynamic setting leads us to emphasize the technology specification that permits the theoretical construction that can be translated and amenable to empirical implementation. A historical perspective of the framing the dynamic decision-making is reviewed. The adjustment cost model of the investment is the key conceptual feature as it can be incorporated into the formal structure of a production technology, which offers the opportunity to exploit primal-dual theory in both analysis and empirical implementation. An overview of empirical formulations in both econometric (parametric) and nonparametric settings is discussed. Dynamic production decision environment allows explicitly for the evolution of assets implying firms may not be in long-run equilibrium at a given point in time. The dynamic generalizations of modern production theory concepts measuring economic performance are reviewed given the need to properly account and value the factors that are out of equilibrium. Empirical nonparametric and parametric approaches are addressed at length. While these cases can be addressed relatively easily within a nonparametric, dynamic data envelopment analysis setting, econometric formulations are a greater challenge