NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE LIMIT NON-LINEAR BEHAVIOUR OF UNREINFORCED STONE MASONRY UNDER IN-PLANE STATE OF STRESS FROM GRAVITATIONAL AND SEISMIC ACTIONS

Abstract eng:
Unreinforced masonry made of stone and low strength mortar has been used for centuries in forming the structural system of old type buildings as well as monumental structures (such as churches etc.) The behaviour of this type of structural systems that survive today, when subjected to the combined gravitational loads and seismic actions, is still of interest. In this framework, the present work tries to evaluate the limit-state in-plane behavior of stone masonry vertical structural elements. Initially, the basic aspects of a methodology are presented whereby the performance of vertical structural elements under seismic actions can be examined through a decomposition process whereby the demands at critical locations of individual piers, that the whole structural system is decomposed to, are compared with the corresponding bearing capacities in either in-plane shear/flexure or in out-of-plane flexure. Next, this methodology is applied to predicting with a reasonably good agreement the performance of stone masonry piers of two churches damaged by the recent Kefalonia-Greece 2014 earthquake. The possibilities offered by non-linear inelastic numerical analyses as alternative means for examining the performance of unreinforced stone masonry vertical structural elements is briefly presented. In addition, numerical simulation results are also presented making use of such non-linear inelastic numerical analyses. The predictions obtained through such non-linear inelastic numerical analyses toward predicting the measured behaviour of stone masonry specimens that were subjected in the laboratory to simultaneous compression and shear or diagonal compression had a reasonable level of success.

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