Rapid seismic assessment procedure of masonry buildings with historic value

Abstract

In light of the increasing interest in rehabilitation of heritage neoclassical buildings of the 19th and 20th century in Greece, often restricted by international treaties for non-invasiveness and reversibility of the intervention and given the practical requirements for the buildings' intended reuse, the present study focuses on the investigation of the parameters that influence the outcome of their seismic assessment through simulation. This class of load-bearing masonry buildings, which is also present in many European countries, are marked by carefully engineered configuration (layout in plan and elevation, systematic location of openings) that can lead to a specific type of seismic response. This study presents a relatively simple and rapid analysis procedure that, for this special class of buildings, can produce very dependable results compared to those obtained from time-consuming dynamic analyses, in a much easier and fast way. The accuracy of the introduced methodology is evaluated through comparison of the results calculated from the proposed method with calculated seismic responses obtained from dynamic time-history analysis using as case studies two representative historical buildings located in the seismically active region of Thessaloniki. For the study a total of ten strong ground motion records are considered, five of which had near-field characteristics. Also presented is a qualitative comparison of the location and extent of anticipated damage, as estimated from the proposed rapid analysis procedure, compared with post-earthquake reconnaissance observations.