Seismic testing of adjacent interacting masonry structures – shake table test and blind prediction competition

Across historical centres in Europe, stone masonry buildings form building aggregates that developed as the layout of the city or village was densified. In these aggregates, adjacent buildings can share structural walls with an older and a newer unit connected either by interlocking stones or by a layer of mortar. Observations after for example the recent Central Italy earthquakes showed that joints between the buildings were often the first elements to be damaged, leading to a complex interaction between the units. The analysis of such building aggregates is difficult due to the lack of guidelines, as the advances were impeded by the scarce experimental data. Therefore, the objective of the project AIMS (Seismic Testing of Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures), included in the H2020 project SERA, was to provide such data by testing an aggregate of two double-leaf stone masonry buildings under two horizontal components of dynamic excitation. The test units were constructed at half-scale, with a two-storey building and a one-storey building. The buildings shared one common wall, while only a layer of mortar connected the façade walls. The floors were at different heights and had different beam orientations. Prior to the test, a blind prediction competition was organized with twelve participants from academia and industry that were provided with all the geometrical and material data, construction details, and the seismic input. The participants were asked to report results in terms of damage mechanisms, recorded displacements and base shear values. Results of the shake-table campaign are reported, together with a comparison with the blind predictions. Large scatter in terms of reported predictions highlights the impact of modelling uncertainties and the need for further tests