Title: Impact of ground movements on the seismic performance of old heritage buildings

Authors: Hugo Renda; Rita Bento; Rui Carrilho Gomes

Addresses: CERIS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal ' CERIS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal ' CERIS, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal

Abstract: Lisbon's downtown is largely occupied by old heritage masonry buildings. These type of buildings is particularly sensitive to ground induced movements, because of the masonry's poor tensile strength and sometimes due to structural changes during rehabilitation works that reduced the overall strength of the building. This paper studies the impact of ground movements on the overall earthquake strength of old masonry buildings, a factor not often explicitly considered. The numerical simulation was performed using the TREMURI program that takes into account the nonlinear behaviour of the structural elements. It is shown that ground displacements may significantly reduce the seismic performance of old heritage buildings.

Keywords: Pombalino buildings; structural damage; ground displacements; differential settlements; TREMURI; capacity curves; ground movements; earthquakes; seismic performance; heritage buildings; Lisbon; Portugal; historic masonry buildings; historic buildings; numerical simulation; nonlinear behaviour; structural elements.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIE.2016.083250

International Journal of Earthquake and Impact Engineering, 2016 Vol.1 No.4, pp.360 - 376

Received: 18 Aug 2016
Accepted: 02 Oct 2016

Published online: 22 Mar 2017 *

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