Earthquake hazard and damage on traditional rural structures in Turkey

Abstract

Abstract. During the last earthquakes in Turkey, reinforced concrete structures in the cities and masonry structures in the rural part were exposed to damage and failure. Masonry houses such as earthen, brick and stone structures are composed of building blocks with weak inter-binding action which have low tension capacity. Bending and shear forces generate tensile stresses which cannot be well tolerated. In this paper, the performance of masonry structures during recent earthquakes in Turkey is discussed with illustrative photographs taken after earthquakes. The followings are the main weakness in the materials and unreinforced masonry constructions and other reasons for the extensive damage of masonry buildings. Very low tensile and shear strength particularly with poor mortar, brittle behaviour in tension as well as compression, stress concentration at corners of windows and doors, overall unsymmetry in plan and elevation of building, unsymmetry due to imbalance in the sizes and positions of walls and openings in the walls, defects in construction such as use of substandard materials, unfilled joints between bricks, not-plump walls, improper bonding between walls at right angles etc.

Sustainability of Traditional Buildings Located in Rural Area

“…Traditional wooden buildings were generally constructed in the ancient parts of city [10][11]. The rural residences are still being constructed with the use of similar materials and construction technology all over the world is a factor easing their classification [11]. There are different approaches to the classification of rural structures in Turkey.…”

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Pakistan Unreinforced Masonry Buildings at a National Scale

“…Rapid seismic evaluation methods are applied on the presented typologies to identify at-risk buildings. Typologies have been used elsewhere in world for conducting seismic vulnerability assessment of buildings (Binda and Saisi 2005;Korkmaz et al 2010;Lutman 2010;Nollet et al 2005), but previous Pakistan URM building characterization studies (Ahmad et al 2010;Ali 2006;Ali and Muhammad 2007;Mumtaz et al 2008) have focused only on certain parts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and the state of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).…”

Shaking table study of masonry buildings with reinforced plaster

“…Despite these praiseworthy endeavours, many casualties due to collapse of masonry houses during earthquakes are reported year after year [1]. In masonry buildings, the loads affecting the system are assumed by inner and outer walls and are then transferred to the base.…”