• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.195-215
• /
• 2016

Rehabilitation of historical unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is a priority in many parts of the world, since those buildings are a living part of history and a testament of human achievement of the era of their construction. Many of these buildings are still operational; comprising brittle materials with no reinforcements, with spatially distributed mass and stiffness, they are not encompassed by current seismic assessment procedures that have been developed for other structural types. To facilitate the difficult task of selecting a proper rehabilitation strategy - often restricted by international treaties for non-invasiveness and reversibility of the intervention - and given the practical requirements for the buildings' intended reuse, this paper presents a practical procedure for assessment of seismic demands of URM buildings - mainly historical constructions that lack a well-defined diaphragm action. A key ingredient of the method is approximation of the spatial shape of lateral translation, ${\Phi}$, that the building assumes when subjected to a uniform field of lateral acceleration. Using ${\Phi}$ as a 3-D shape function, the dynamic response of the system is evaluated, using the concepts of SDOF approximation of continuous systems. This enables determination of the envelope of the developed deformations and the tendency for deformation and damage localization throughout the examined building for a given design earthquake scenario. Deformation demands are specified in terms of relative drift ratios referring to the in-plane and the out-of-plane seismic response of the building's structural elements. Drift ratio demands are compared with drift capacities associated with predefined performance limits. The accuracy of the introduced procedure is evaluated through (a) comparison of the response profiles with those obtained from detailed time-history dynamic analysis using a suite of ten strong ground motion records, five of which with near-field characteristics, and (b) evaluation of the performance assessment results with observations reported in reconnaissance reports of the field performance of two neoclassical torsionally-sensitive historical buildings, located in Thessaloniki, Greece, which survived a major earthquake in the past.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.1-11
• /
• 2022

In this study, the seismic performance of a two-story unreinforced masonry (URM) building was assessed following the linear and nonlinear static procedures specified in the seismic evaluation guideline of existing buildings. First, the provisions to assess failure modes and shear strengths of URM walls and wall piers were reviewed. Then, a two-story URM building was assessed by the linear static procedure using m-factors. The results showed that the walls and wall piers with aspect ratios h_e // (i.e., effective height-to-length ratio) > 1.5 were unsafe due to rocking or toe crushing, whereas the walls with h_e // ≤ 1.5 and governed by bed-joint sliding mainly were safe. Axial stresses and shear forces acted upon individual masonry walls, and wall piers differed depending on whether the openings were modeled. The masonry building was reevaluated according to the nonlinear static procedure for a more refined assessment. Based on the linear and nonlinear assessment results, considerations of seismic evaluation for low-rise masonry buildings were given with a focus on the effects of openings.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
• /
• v.10 no.2
• /
• pp.117-132
• /
• 2023

The most prevalent and oldest type of structure is unreinforced masonry (URM) structures; URM walls are still a widely used construction material in India and many other developing countries due to their simplicity, ease of construction, economic sustainability, and ability to be built with locally available materials. URM walls are significantly weak while carrying lateral loads. The poor performance of URM walls during earthquakes has necessitated investigating an effective method for strengthening a newly built masonry building or retrofitting an old structure. Wire mesh, being cost-effective and easily available, satisfies the requirements to strengthen new and old URM buildings. The use of wire mesh to strengthen and retrofit the URM structure is simple to use, quick to construct, and inexpensive, especially in developing nations where heavy machinery and highly qualified labour are lacking. The current paper reviews the effectiveness of steel wire mesh as a reinforcing material for enhancing masonry strength. The finding gave encouraging results for the field application of wire mesh.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.41-50
• /
• 2009

Following an earthquake, the major concerns for damaged buildings are their safety/risk in the event of aftershocks, and thus a quantitative damage assessment must be performed in order to evaluate their residual seismic capacity and to identify necessary actions for the damaged buildings. Post-event damage evaluation is therefore as essential for the quick recovery of a damaged community as pre-event seismic evaluation and strengthening of vulnerable buildings. The objective of this study is to develop a post-earthquake seismic evaluation method for RC frames with URM infill wall for typical school buildings. For this purpose, full-scale, one-bay, single-story specimens having different axial loads in columns are tested under cyclic loadings. During the tests, residual crack widths, which can also be found in damaged buildings, are measured in order to estimate the residual seismic capacity from the observed damage. In this paper, the relationship between the measured residual crack width and the residual seismic capacity is discussed analytically and experimentally, and reduction factors are proposed to estimate the residual seismic capacity based on the observed damage level.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.69 no.6
• /
• pp.677-691
• /
• 2019

In recent years, interest is growing in the engineering community on the experimental assessment and the theoretical prediction of the out-of-plane (OOP) seismic response of unreinforced masonry (URM) infills, which are widespread in Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings in Europe and in the Mediterranean area. In the literature, some mechanical-based models for the prediction of the entire OOP force-displacement response have been formulated and proposed. However, the small number of experimental tests currently available has not allowed, up to current times, a robust and reliable evaluation of the predictive capacity of such response models. To enrich the currently available experimental database, six pure OOP tests on URM infills in RC frames were carried out at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture of the University of Naples Federico II. Test specimens were built with the same materials and were different only for the thickness of the infill walls and for the number of their edges mortared to the confining elements of the RC frames. In this paper, the results of these experimental tests are briefly recalled. The main aim of this study is comparing the experimental response of test specimens with the prediction of mechanical models presented in the literature, in order to assess their effectiveness and contribute to the definition of a robust and reliable model for the evaluation of the OOP seismic response of URM infill walls.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
• /
• v.18 no.4 s.94
• /
• pp.535-542
• /
• 2006

In Seoul, more than 80 percent of residential buildings are constructed with unreinforced masonry(URM) buildings in early 1970 to 1990. In general, URM buildings have the advantages of reducing the construction time and easy to construction. However, URM buildings do not have enough strength against the lateral force. Moreover, low rise buildings have not adopted seismic designs, and for that reason a critical damage is expected with an earthquake. And also, the necessity of the seismic performance evaluation of existing building structures is raised through the Taiwan earthquake in 1999. The purpose of this study is to provide basic information for unreinforced masonry building in Korea by application of the proposed seismic evaluation method. In this study, seismic capacities of 50 existing unreinforced masonry buildings are evaluated based on the proposed method. Also, relationships of seismic capacities between Korean earthquake damage ratios of korean unreinforced masonry buildings are estimated. Results of this study were as follows; 1)Seismic retrofit was needed $8{\sim}48%$ in Korean unreinforced masonry buildings. 2)Korean unreinforced masonry buildings were expected to have severe damage under the earthquake intensity level experienced in Japan.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.87 no.5
• /
• pp.487-498
• /
• 2023

Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings are extensively adopted in many of the growing nations, particularly in India. Window or door openings are required for architectural or functional reasons, which pose a threat to the building's safety. The past earthquakes have shown that the seismic capability of these structures was very weak. Strengthening these unreinforced masonry walls using welded wire mesh (WWM) is one of the most commonly and economical methods. The present experimental study investigates the impact of openings on the shear behaviour of URM walls and the effectiveness of WWM in enhancing the shear performance of masonry wall. In the experimental program 16 specimens were cast, 8 unstrengthen and 8 strengthened specimens, under 8 unstrengthen and strengthened specimens, every 2 specimens had 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% openings and all these walls were tested under diagonal compression. The results show that the shear carrying capacity reduces as the opening percentage increases. However, strengthening the URM specimens using WWM significantly improves the peak load, shear strength, ductility, stiffness, and energy dissipation. Furthermore, the strengthening of the URM walls using WWM compensated the loss of wall capacity caused by the presence of the openings.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.42 no.5
• /
• pp.609-629
• /
• 2012

This study deals with the assessment of low and mid rise multi-story buildings made of stone and /or brick, composite steel and masonry slabs from the sixties, known to be vulnerable to seismic hazard using the "vulnerability index" method based on buildings survey following Ain Temouchent (1999) and Boumerdes (2003) earthquakes, from where vulnerability curves are constructed using the translation method. The results obtained for the case study confirm what has been observed in situ.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.17 no.3_4
• /
• pp.527-537
• /
• 2004

Consequence-Based Engineering (CBE) is a new paradigm proposed by the Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAE) to guide evaluation and rehabilitation of building structures and networks in areas of low probability - high consequence earthquakes such as the central region of the U.S. The principal objective of CBE is to minimize consequences by prescribing appropriate intervention procedures for a broad range of structures and systems, in consultation with key decision makers. One possible intervention option for rehabilitating unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, widely used for essential facilities in Mid-America, is passive energy dissipation (PED). After the CBE process is described, its application in the rehabilitation of vulnerable URM building construction in Mid-America is illustrated through the use of PED devices attached to flexible timber floor diaphragms. It is shown that PED's can be applied to URM buildings in situations where floor diaphragm flexibility can be controlled to reduce both out-of-plane and in-plane wall responses and damage. Reductions as high as 48% in roof displacement and acceleration can be achieved as demonstrated in studies reported below.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.81-90
• /
• 2020

A textile and capillary tube composite panel(TCP) was developed to simultaneously retrofit the seismic performance and the energy efficiency (e.g. heating or insulation performance) of existing unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. TCP is a light-weight mortar panel in which carbon textile reinforcements and capillary tubes are embedded. Textile reinforcements plays a role of seismic retrofit and capillary tubes that hot water circulates contribute to the energy retrofit. In this paper, the static cyclic loading tests were performed on the masonry walls with/without TCP to understand the seismic retrofit effect of TCP retrofit and the results were summarized. The results of the test showed that the TCP contributed to increase the capacity of the Shear strength and ductility of the URM walls. In addition, the deformation of the wall after cracking was substantially controlled by the carbon textile.