Seismic Performance of a Masonry Heritage Structure
Shakeel Ahmad1, Rehan Ahmad Khan2, Hina Gupta3
1Shakeel Ahmad, Professor, Department Civil Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
2Rehan Ahmad Khan, Associate Professor, Department Civil Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
3Hina Gupta, M. Tech student, Department Civil Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
Manuscript received on March 28, 2014. | Revised Manuscript received on April 10, 2014. | Manuscript published on April 30, 2014. | PP: 335-340 | Volume-3, Issue-4, April 2014. | Retrieval Number: D3002043414/2013©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: World-wide experience from past earthquakes shows un-reinforced masonry structures are the most vulnerable and represent overall the largest threat to human life and property in future earthquakes. This highlights the structural inadequacy of buildings, especially unreinforced masonry buildings, to carry seismic loads and requires an urgent assessment of existing buildings in terms of the strength, expected performance and safety of existing buildings during earthquake as well as for carrying out the necessary rehabilitation. As it is a heavy, brittle material with low tensile strength and exhibits little ductility when subjected to seismic effects, unreinforced masonry is highly susceptible to earthquake damage than various other types of construction material. Unreinforced masonry buildings are usually characterized by sudden and dramatic collapse. Present study deals with an evaluation of the seismic performance of an old unreinforced masonry building structure. The 137 years old masonry heritage school building is located at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh (seismic zone IV). The building does not show any cracks under gravity loads. Since the historical building was built before the inception of seismic IS code, the point of concern is performance of building under seismic loads. In the present study, the building is modelled using finite element technique and its seismic evaluation is carried out using the commercially available Finite Element software assuming a homogeneous and nonlinear behaviour of the material. The building is subjected to different PGA levels (0.1g, 0.2g, 0.3g, 0.4g ) as input ground motion to determine its seismic performance. The results thus obtained will be useful for detecting the weak failure zones of the buildings under future seismic forces and retrofit accordingly using proper retrofitting techniques.
Keywords: Heritage masonry building, Finite element modelling, Seismic performance, Peak ground acceleration.