Seismic rehabilitation of masonry heritage structures with base-isolation and with selected contemporary strengthening measures

Abstract

In the seismically active zones of southern and central Europe, unreinforced masonry (URM) structures are one of the most common types of buildings. Some of them possess a high historical value and could therefore be classified as part of the architectural heritage, requiring special attention with regard to their preservation and retrofitting measures. In practice, however, the accurate prediction of the seismic response of such structures often proves to be difficult, not only due to the complex geometrical features of their individual architectural parts, but also due to the composite and non-homogeneous nature of URM. Due to the great variety of structural configurations and materials used, rational approaches for the assessment of the seismic safety levels of such buildings are needed. The paper analyses the applicability of two contemporary seismic strengthening measures, namely the use of fibre-reinforced polymer composites and the implementation of base-isolation to achieve the desired, code-based seismic protection levels. A three-storey masonry building was considered in the study. Non-linear static analyses for different levels of seismic intensities were conducted on a mathematical model of the fixed-base, FRP-strengthened and base-isolated variants of the structure.