Seismic Behavior Assessment of a Brazilian Heritage Construction

Abstract

Preservation of historical constructions, and passing it on to future generations, is a major issue in modern societies. Earthquakes are one of the major causes of damages to heritage buildings across the world. The city of Sobral (Ceará State, Brazil) keeps in its historic center a large number of heritage buildings and, since 2008, an intense seismic activity has been observed. This study aims to contribute to the preservation of the Sobral heritage constructions against seismic loads through the assessment of the seismic behavior of one representative building: the Nossa Senhora das Dores Church, a 19 th century historical construction. First, a 3D finite element (FE) model was built and tuned according to the results of dynamic tests performed under environmental loads. Next, the FE model was employed to assess the seismic behavior of the church by performing linear time-history analyses employing two real earthquakes. The results showed big displacements and high stresses in many parts of the church, allowing to identify the most critical and most susceptible to damage areas (based on the seismic scenarios considered). These results can be considered as a support for seismic retrofitting measures to be adopted on Sobral heritage constructions.

Seismic performance of masonry buildings in Iraq

“…Considering the global seismic performance of the buildings in this study is in line with several previous published studies [10,16,20]. In contrast, investigations presented in Francisco Brandão et al [11], Hökelekli [18] and Maras et al [19] considered local damages in buildings using stress analysis by adopting linear or/and nonlinear time history analyses. On the other hand, several previous investigations considered both local and global performance of buildings [9,17].…”

“…Gianni Bartoli et al [10] reported and compared results of first and third specified levels of assessments and draw the conclusions based on the third level that involves nonlinear static pushover analysis. Francisco Brandão et al [11] investigated the seismic resistance of the historical Nossa Senhora das Dores Church in Brazil using three dimensional finite element modeling. Linear time-history analyses were conducted considering two actual earthquake records.…”

“…almost all previous studies had focused on old and historical masonry buildings[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] located in different regions in the world.…”

Multicriteria decision-making to support preventive maintenance of built heritage in the historic center of Sobral, Brazil

“…Its failure can cause the ruin of the building and consequent material and immaterial loss. Relevant buildings in the historic center of Sobral has been diagnosed with pathologies (Mota et al , 2017; Fontenele et al , 2021), in addition, the municipality deals with sporadic seismic activities despite its intra-plate location (Oliveira et al , 2010; Brandão et al , 2018). These criteria comprise three subcriteria:Materials (Mat): The construction techniques and materials frequently with low control and reduced quality designate a need for periodic assessment of its physical integrity.Façade (Fac): It has a structural role conferring relevant rigidity in the scenario.…”

Vibration control in buildings under seismic excitation using optimized tuned mass dampers

“…arthquakes are a natural phenomenon with violent shaking of the ground due to tectonic movements in the interior of the earth [1]. When the structure is subjected to seismic excitation there is an induction of horizontal forces at foundation level of structures which can generate vibration problems and in situations where the frequency of this excitation is very close to some natural frequency of the structure, the vibrations can reach large amplitude, allowing which the resonance phenomenon can occur, which can cause large displacements in the structure, and even its collapse [2][3][4]. In this scenario, the structural control is an alternative to reduce the levels of vibrations and E improve the performance of these structures when requested by dynamics actions.…”