Seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe constructions: a numerical case study from Yazd, Iran

Past earthquakes have demonstrated that historical vaulted adobe buildings are highly vulnerable to seismic actions. Hence, it is crucial for such building typologies to be evaluated in terms of seismic capacity. To this end, this article deals with the seismic performance of historical vaulted adobe houses from the city of Yazd, Iran as one of the seismically active areas of the world and possessing a very rich adobe heritage. Thus, and based on a detailed geometrical survey, a representative sample of adobe houses from Yazd was studied using a simplified in-plane analysis based on three geometric indexes. Concerning the out-of-plane behavior, a deeper assessment was conducted by performing a numerical study, where the main influential parameters on the seismic behavior of vaulted adobe buildings were considered. The numerical analyses were carried out by adopting the limit analysis theory implemented in the Block2D software. The results obtained indicate the safe in-plane behavior of most of the houses and the safe out-of-plane response of the sample under gravitational loads. However, the sample out-of-plane safety under earthquake-induced loads seems to be a matter of concern.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007633)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Experimental characterization of adobe vaults strengthened with a TRM-based compatible composite

This paper deals with the structural behaviour and strengthening of adobe vaults representative from historical buildings of the city of Yazd, Iran. Eight destructive tests were performed on 1:3 scaled adobe vault models by loading them at 30% of the span in loading-unloading cycles of increasing vertical displacement. The models were tested considering both unstrengthened and strengthened conditions, where the strengthening consisted of an externally bonded low-cost textile reinforced mortar (LC-TRM) composed of a low-cost fiber-glass mesh embedded in earth-based mortar. Three different strengthening strategies were evaluated, namely by testing undamaged models strengthened at the extrados, undamaged models strengthened at the intrados and repaired models strengthened at the intrados. The experimental results show that the adopted LC-TRM composite improves the structural behavior of adobe vaults, by increasing substantially their load-bearing capacity and by changing the failure mechanism to more ductile ones.This work was financed by FEDER funds through the Competitively Factors Operational Programme (COMPETE) and by national funds through the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the scope of projects POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016737 (PTDC/ECM-EST/2777/2014) and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007633

Empirical seismic vulnerability analysis for masonry buildings based on school buildings survey in Iran

School facilities in Iran, in particular masonry schools, have shown poor performance during past earthquakes and can be identified as one of the parts of the country’s infrastructure that is most vulnerable to earthquakes. Hence, in this paper a method to perform index-based damage assessment for brick masonry schools located in the province of Yazd, the central region of Iran, using a comprehensive database of school buildings, is proposed. The database was obtained from the field survey forms applied for each observed school to collect the features of and damage to the structure. The results of a vulnerability index method developed in Iran are employed as input data to obtain empirical fragility curves for the school inventory. The Macroseismic model and GNDT II level method are two empirical methods combined in this procedure. Finally, the procedure is verified using damage survey data obtained after recent earthquakes (1990 Manjil–Rudbar earthquake and 2003 Bam earthquake) that occurred in Iran.This research was sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) of Iran. The authors are very grateful to the State Organization of Schools Renovation and Mobilization of Iran for its help and provision of the school building database