A Numerical Study on Seismic Behavior of a Typical Rural House of Iran

Abstract eng:
More than 90 percent of almost 4 million rural houses in Iran do not have any lateral load resisting system. A large amount of fatalities in recent earthquakes in Iran, like Bam (2003) and Zarand (2005), was due to collapse of such houses. It points to the need of more research in this area. In this paper, the seismic behavior of one of the most vulnerable types of such houses is studied through a comprehensive numerical model. The adobe blocks are modeled as separate elements connected to each other by contact elements to represent the role of mortar between the blocks. The explicit method is selected as the solving procedure and different sources of nonlinearity are considered in the analysis. The model is then analyzed for different base excitations, including ground motions recorded during Bam earthquake. The results show damage patterns which are comparable with those observed in real earthquakes.

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