The Effect of Multiple Earthquake Excitations in Sequence on Ancient Multi-Drum Structures

Abstract eng:
Strong earthquakes are common causes of destruction of ancient monuments, such as classical columns and colonnades. Ancient classical columns of great archaeological significance can be abundantly found in high seismicity areas in the Eastern Mediterranean. Multi-drum columns are constructed of stone blocks that are placed on top of each other, often without connecting material between the individual blocks. The seismic behaviour of these structures exhibits complicated rocking and sliding phenomena between the individual blocks of the structure that very rarely appear in modern structures. The investigation of the dynamic response of such monumental structures, combined with the research fields of paleoseismology and archaeoseismology, may reveal certain information from past strong earthquakes that have struck the respective regions. Studying multi-drum structures under different earthquake excitations can provide some insights in defining the frequency content and magnitude of past destructive earthquakes. Furthermore, the understanding of the seismic behaviour of these structures can contribute to the rational assessment for their structural rehabilitation. Multi-drum classical columns have been exposed to large numbers of strong seismic events throughout the many centuries of their life spans. Those that survived have successfully withstood a natural seismic testing that lasted for several centuries. This research work investigates how multiple earthquake excitations in sequence affect the overall seismic behaviour of multi-drum columns. Specifically, various strong motion excitations are selected from a specific region where these monuments are built, and used in series for the computation of the collective final deformation of multi-drum columns. In order to calculate this cumulative deformation for the series of motions, the individual deformation of the column for each excitation is computed and then used as initial conditions for the next earthquake. For this procedure, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) is utilized by simulating the individual rock blocks as distinct bodies. A specialized software application is developed, using a modern object-oriented programming language, in order to enable the effective and efficient simulation of multi-drum columns under these conditions.

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