Analysis of the load carrying capacity of the masonry walls of the palace of Biržai castle

Abstract

The representative palace of Biržai castle [1] was built in the beginning of the XVIth century before being destroyed in the early XVIIth century. It remained a long time a derelict palace. In the beginning of the XIXth century, there was an incentive to preserve what remained of the building. In the middle of the XXth century were done historical and archaeological analyses as well as preservation works for the remains of the castle. From 1978 to 1988, the palace was rebuilt and tailored to become a museum and library. However in 2004, an evaluation of the rebuilt palace technical state found that walls have begun splitting. In this work, the reasons for the palace wall splitting are exposed based on Finite Element Analysis computing results.