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Experimental investigation on the seismic performance of masonry buildings using shaking table testing

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Abstract

Masonry buildings worldwide exhibited severe damage and collapse in recent strong earthquake events. It is known that their brittle behavior, which is mainly due to the combination of low tensile strength, large mass and insufficient connection between structural elements, is the main limitation for their structural implementation in residential buildings. A new construction system for masonry buildings using concrete blocks units and trussed reinforcement is presented here and its seismic behavior is validated through shaking table tests. Dynamic tests of two geometrically identical two-story reduced scale (1:2) models have been carried out, considering artificial accelerograms compatible with the elastic response spectrum defined by the Eurocode 8. The first model was reinforced with the new proposed system while the second model was built with unreinforced masonry. The experimental analysis encompasses local and global parameters such as cracking patterns, failure mechanisms, and in-plane and out-of-plane behavior in terms of displacements and lateral drifts from where the global dynamic behavior of the two buildings is analyzed comparatively. Finally, behavior factors for the design recommendations in case of unreinforced masonry are also evaluated.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Agency of Innovation (ADI), which financed the present work developed in the scope of the national project ALVEST (no. 5456), “Development of solutions for the structural masonry”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, ISISE, University of Minho - Azurém Campus, Guimarães, Portugal

    Paulo B. Lourenço, Leonardo Avila, Graça Vasconcelos, J.Pedro Pedro Alves & Nuno Mendes

  2. NESDE, National Laboratory for Civil Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal

    Alfredo C. Costa

Authors
  1. Paulo B. Lourenço
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  2. Leonardo Avila
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  3. Graça Vasconcelos
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  4. J.Pedro Pedro Alves
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  5. Nuno Mendes
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  6. Alfredo C. Costa
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Correspondence to Leonardo Avila.

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Lourenço, P.B., Avila, L., Vasconcelos, G. et al. Experimental investigation on the seismic performance of masonry buildings using shaking table testing. Bull Earthquake Eng 11, 1157–1190 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-012-9410-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-012-9410-7

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