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Fragility curves for masonry structures submitted to permanent ground displacements and earthquakes

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Abstract

Usually, the vulnerability of structures is treated considering only one single hazard, for example either seismic hazard or ground instability. However, historical monuments, cultural heritage structures or old masonry structures can be affected, over the past centuries of existence, by a succession of different hazards. The objective of this paper was to quantify the changes in the seismic vulnerability of a given structure previously damaged by quasi-static differential settlements. In view of this, a soil-structure model of the masonry building is constructed using TREMURI software by putting springs at the base of the building to account for the soil behaviour. Classical empirical relationships are used for setting the mechanical properties of these foundation springs. The chosen equations are valid for both static and dynamic situations. The soil-structure model is first submitted to differential settlements with maximum magnitudes ranging from 5 to 25 cm. Then, the damaged structures are submitted to a set of time-histories. Fragility curves taking into consideration permanent differential settlements are finally obtained, using a modified regression technique accounting for the presence of residual drift due to the prior static loading.

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Acknowledgments

The results presented in this paper have been achieved within the project PERPETUATE (www.perpetuate.eu), co-funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), under Grant agreement no 244229. The authors wish to thank Dr Serena Cattari and Prof. Sergio Lagomarsino (University of Genoa) for providing the numerical model of the test structure, Dr John Douglas from BRGM for his help in the selection of the ground motion records used in the present study and Prof. Kyriazis Pitilakis (Technical University of Thessaloniki) for providing the plans that have been used by our team for illustrating Fig. 1. The authors are also very grateful to Dr Ken Tokeshi and an anonymous reviewer for their detailed reviews of a previous version of this article, which significantly improved the study.

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  1. D. M. Seyedi

    Present address: ANDRA, 1-7 Rue Jean Monnet, 92280, Chatenay-Malabry, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BRGM, 3 Avenue Claude Guillemin, 45060, Orléans, France

    C. Negulescu, T. Ulrich, A. Baills & D. M. Seyedi

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  1. C. Negulescu
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  2. T. Ulrich
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  3. A. Baills
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Correspondence to C. Negulescu.

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Negulescu, C., Ulrich, T., Baills, A. et al. Fragility curves for masonry structures submitted to permanent ground displacements and earthquakes. Nat Hazards 74, 1461–1474 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-014-1253-x

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