DOI 10.12910/EAI2016-066
T
he preservation of ar- and should be done preferably using sion and no tension strength for the
chitectural heritage is a non-destructive testing (De Stefano masonry.
delicate task, especially & Clemente, 2009). Among these, The study showed that Minaret is
for structures exposed to the experimental dynamic analysis stable under dead loads. However,
relevant seismic risk, and requires a represents a suitable tool for dynamic the stability check is very sensitive
balance between the structural safety characterization and a first diagnosis to soil properties, which should be
needs and the respect for the archi- (Clemente & Buffarini, 2009), and investigated in more detail, as well
tectural and cultural values. Most of traffic-induced vibrations represent a as the foundation depth. If the soil
the historical and architectural herit- suitable free source of excitation. strength would be lower than the
age is made of ancient masonry con- With reference to the interventions, assumed value, a wide portion of
structions, characterized by a wide it is well known that traditional the soil under foundation could be
range of uncertainties and high seis- techniques, based on the increase in yielded. This implies that the struc-
mic vulnerability. strength and ductility, are not suit- ture could be closer to the collapse
The first step in the structural analy- able for the seismic rehabilitation of point than it appears.
sis is the evaluation of actions that cultural heritage structures. For these, The seismic check based on rigid
can affect the construction. The cor- using new technologies is advisable: tower modelling and deformable
rect and complete description of the seismic isolation, for example, is soil showed that the maximum ac-
seismic input for structural design based on a terrific reduction of the celeration value requested to reach
at a given site is given by the ac- seismic actions affecting the struc- the soil collapse is much lower than
celeration components along three ture, instead of relying on its strength. the spectral amplitude on site com-
orthogonal axes, recorded on-site In the following, some relevant cas- ing from seismic hazard assessment
during a suitable number of real es in the field of structural analysis of the area, demonstrating the high
events or selected in world-wide and preservation of cultural herit- vulnerability of the Minaret. Obvi-
accelerometric databases. In practi- age structures are shown. Different ously, also the possible seismic loads
cal applications, when using linear structural types are considered: tow- are very sensitive to soil characteris-
analysis, the horizontal and vertical ers, monuments, bridges, religious tics, which can significantly modify
on-site response spectra can be used and historic buildings. For each of the amplitude and frequency of local
to determine the maximum seismic them a different structural aspect is likely expected ground-motion.
effects on structures. analysed. The push-over analysis, also based
The second step refers to the struc- on a multi-mode approach and for
tural modeling, which requires a Stability of a masonry tower two values of masonry strength, al-
good knowledge of the geometrical lowed to take into account the mass
and mechanical characteristics (De The leaning Minaret of Jam, one of distribution along the height and the
Stefano et al., 2016). The elastic and the tallest in the world, was declared “weight” of each mode. The pseudo-
inelastic ranges influence the value as the Afghanistan’s first World Heri- acceleration spectra and the modal
of the behavior factor assumed in tage Site by UNESCO in 2002. The analysis highlight the major spectral
the analysis, which is a measure of global stability analysis of the tower amplitude of the second mode with
the inelastic capacity of the building, against soil collapse was evaluated respect to the first. The non-linear
i.e., its capacity to dissipate energy. in its present configuration, in the analysis shows that, depending on
Often the analysis is quite hard be- hypothesis of increasing bending the soil-masonry strength ratio, the
cause of the little knowledge of the moment at the base section, assum- failure under seismic loads can oc-
geometry of the structures and their ing an elastic-perfect plastic behav- cur for soil collapse or the collapse
materials, especially with reference iour for the soil. Then a finite ele- of the masonry in the top part can
to the foundations and soil charac- ment model was set up and used for happen before.
teristics, but often also to the eleva- the modal analysis and then for the
tion structure. As a matter of fact, seismic push-over analysis, based Traffic-induced vibrations in a
the visible elements and materials do on both single and multi-modal ap- monumental structure
not correspond to the effective ones, proaches, assuming an elastic-per-
so detailed analyses are fundamental fect plastic behaviour in compres- The Colosseum is the largest amphi-
theater ever built (Fig. 1). Concentric the external wall at the eastern side, allowed to point out the vibration
annular walls connected by a series designed by Stern, and that on the amplitudes at different locations in
of radial walls and vaults compose western-end wall, designed by Vala- the monuments as well as some of
the structure. The outer wall is 48 m dier. its resonance frequencies. More re-
high and is composed of travertine In 1955, the first underground line cently, in 2014, another experimen-
blocks, originally connected by iron in Rome, now called line B, was tal campaign was carried out, which
pins and cramps without mortar. completed. It passes very close to the interested the northern wall and also
The foundation consists of an ellip- Colosseum and the extrados of the the hypogeum. The results pointed
tical ring, approximately 13 m thick, pipe is just below the present pave- out some interesting features of the
composed by a paving of about 1 ment. Furthermore, on the north foundations.
m and two concrete layers with dif- side a new underground, the line C,
ferent characteristics, of about 6 m is under construction. Thermally-induced cracks in
each. The Colosseum was one of the masonry arches
The structure suffered extensive monuments in Rome investigated
damage over the centuries, with col- by ENEA in the mid-‘80s. The struc- The Brooklyn Bridge in New York
lapses due to earthquakes, especially ture was instrumented to study the City is the only long-span suspen-
those having epicenter in the Abru- effects of the traffic-induced vibra- sion bridge of its kind that was built
zzo’s Apennine. Important structural tions at different times of the day, as in the nineteenth century and is still
interventions were made in the 19th well as the vibrations from the near in service. It took 14 years to con-
century, such as on the buttresses underground, and to determine its struct the bridge, finally opened to
that support the remaining part of dynamic characteristics. The results the public in 1883. At the time the
wooden roof and the masonry walls cates the famous arch in Ctesiphon aiming at its seismic rehabilitation
are missing. Several structural reso- and the building’s brick-works recall (Clemente et al., 2009).
nance frequencies related to different the Persian tradition of brick con- The retrofitting strategy was or-
modal shapes were identified. structions. At the present time, the ganized in two steps. The first one
Forced tests of the vaults showed Museum building is part of the his- consisted in improving the seismic
resonance frequencies slightly dif- torical and cultural heritage of the performance of the structure using
ferent from those pointed out by city of Tehran and contains lots of traditional systems; the second one
ambient vibration tests. More sig- rests of Persepolis. in designing a suitable base isola-
nificant differences were observed in tion system. The traditional works
the records obtained on the vaults of The seismic vulnerability of the proposed, i.e. the placement of steel
the choir and on that of the transept Museum in its present state was bracing systems in the courtyards
during earthquakes, probably due to analysed by means of a simplified and the realization of rigid horizon-
the mechanical non-linearity of ma- procedure, which allowed to evalu- tal diaphragms, should guarantee a
good seismic performance respect-
ing the architectural and functional
requirements.
Obviously, the consolidated build-
ing presents a higher seismic resist-
ance, which was evaluated account-
ing for the dynamic behaviour of an
isolated building. The analysis was
carried out by using a finite element
model, taking into account the com-
bination rule for the seismic actions
and the torsional effects due to vari-
able loads. The value of the spectral
amplitude, which causes the onset
of damage to the structure, resulted
to be equal to Sei = 0.15g. This value
has been used as limit value for the
check of the superstructure in its ul-
Fig. 3 The crack temperature and sensor readings, west vault timate limit state.
Source: University of Illinois
For the insertion of the isolation
devices two beam systems were de-
sonry. The presence of some cracks ate a seismic vulnerability index. signed at the foundation level, one
in the vaults also played an impor- This index was then used to esti- placed directly by the soil, the other
tant role. mate the peak ground acceleration just under the masonry. The isola-
values agi = 0.024g and agc = 0.240g, tion devices were accommodated be-
Application of seismic isolation corresponding to the onset of dam- tween them. The proposed isolation
to a historic building age and to the collapse, respectively. system was composed of 100 lead
These values are much lower than elastomeric isolators and 247 sliders,
The Iran Bastan Museum, designed the maximum peak ground accel- deployed in order to optimize the
by André Godard and completed in eration expected at the Museum site, dynamic behaviour of the structure.
1936, was conceived as a modern equal to ag = 0.5g for an exceedance The fundamental period of the iso-
building with a traditional façade probability of 10% in 50 years. So the lated structure was Tis = 2.40 s, the
inspired by the pre-Islamic archi- building presents a very high seismic damping factor was 25% and the
tecture of the Sasanian period. The vulnerability, which calls for urgent maximum seismic displacement was
large main entrance archway repli- and comprehensive remedial works, dE = 400 mm.
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