By Yaser Yehya Amin Abdel-Aty
ABSTRACT
External and internal façade walls at historical buildings in Cairo usually comprise projections that are carried on corbels. The corbels are usually built of stone, timber or composite (i.e. timber and stone). These masonry façade projections are usually vulnerable to structural damages and failures due to several causes, which can lead to successive failure and collapse of the timber roofs that support on them, so that the whole building maybe abandoned, in addition to possible injuries and death of passing-by during façade’s falling-down and routes’ blocking from its ruins. The present work studies the masonry façade projections of the historical medieval buildings in Cairo and their supporting stone corbels to determine their structural behaviour and failure mechanism. It reveals the significances of distinctive cambering of the corbels to the stability of the projections. Besides, a proposal for strengthening of the projection walls and corbels is provided.
