Taiwan is abundant in natural cobble and one of the principal of the ecological construction method is ”full utilization of field materials”. Although, human beings have built masonry structures for thousands years, the scientific study on properties of masonry structures is still scarce. It is necessary to do more research in order to meet the needs of material specification and the safety analysis on masonry structure. Therefore, this study uses the cobbles gathered from Tou-Qian River, Hsinchu County as samples. The sizes of these cobbles range from 15 cm to 75 cm. Depending nit their sizes all samples are divided into several groups for measuring the physical properties of the cobble and dry stone masonry wall. Then, those properties are observed by geometrical and statistical methods. The results from this study show that the cobbles become slender and un-platy with increasing the maximum dimension d1. The statistical domains of (mean value ± standard deviation) of (d1/d2) and (d2/d3) for cobbles are range from 1.15 to 1.81 and from 1.09 to 2.19 respectively. The symbol of d2 and d3 are defined as intermediate and minimum cobble dimension respectively, the equations derived by author for estimating the area and volume of cobble arc accurate. The mean measured unit weight and mean submerged unit weight of cobbles are 25.04 kN/m^3 and 15.23 kN/m^3 respectively. The mean measured unit weight, theoretical unit weight and theoretical submerged unit weight of dry stone masonry wall are 14.15 kN/m^3, 13.12 kN/m^3 and 7.98 kN/m3 respectively. The mean measured porosity and theoretical porosity of dry stone masonry wall are 0.378 and 0.476 respectively.
Taiwan is abundant in natural cobble and one of the principal of the ecological construction method is ”full utilization of field materials”. Although, human beings have built masonry structures for thousands years, the scientific study on properties of masonry structures is still scarce. It is necessary to do more research in order to meet the needs of material specification and the safety analysis on masonry structure. Therefore, this study uses the cobbles gathered from Tou-Qian River, Hsinchu County as samples. The sizes of these cobbles range from 15 cm to 75 cm. Depending nit their sizes all samples are divided into several groups for measuring the physical properties of the cobble and dry stone masonry wall. Then, those properties are observed by geometrical and statistical methods. The results from this study show that the cobbles become slender and un-platy with increasing the maximum dimension d1. The statistical domains of (mean value ± standard deviation) of (d1/d2) and (d2/d3) for cobbles are range from 1.15 to 1.81 and from 1.09 to 2.19 respectively. The symbol of d2 and d3 are defined as intermediate and minimum cobble dimension respectively, the equations derived by author for estimating the area and volume of cobble arc accurate. The mean measured unit weight and mean submerged unit weight of cobbles are 25.04 kN/m^3 and 15.23 kN/m^3 respectively. The mean measured unit weight, theoretical unit weight and theoretical submerged unit weight of dry stone masonry wall are 14.15 kN/m^3, 13.12 kN/m^3 and 7.98 kN/m3 respectively. The mean measured porosity and theoretical porosity of dry stone masonry wall are 0.378 and 0.476 respectively.