THE COLLAPSE OF A MAGASIN À POUDRE DESCRIBED BY FRÉZIER: AN INTERESTING CASE STUDY FROM THE PAST

In his Treatise, Frézier describes the case of the collapse of a “magasin à poudre” built in 1732. Frézier tries to infer the cause of the incident by applying the geometrical rule by the De La Hire, which regards the minimum thickness of the piers. Then, he compares such a thickness with that of the actual piers. In his opinion, the collapse of the powder magazine occurred because of the weakness of the piers. In the present paper we return on this case, and we try to investigate the real cause of the collapse by comparing the results obtained by Frézier with those arising from an accurate application of De La Hire’s rule and from the methods and tools of modern limit analysis as well.