Numerical procedure for detecting the optimal stress state within the profile of a cracked arch

The method for identifying the line of thrust closest to the geometrical axis of an undamaged arch, developed by the authors in a publication in 2019 for the first time, is extended in this paper to the case of cracked arches. Cracks subdivide the arch into rigid portions linked in-between in correspondence to points at the extrados or the intrados, which can be interpreted as internal hinges. Under this assumption, the procedure is reformulated and extended to the cases of the one and two-hinged arch. In the paper, the procedure is presented in detail for the case of the one-hinged arch.