Seismic behaviour assessment of vernacular isolated buildings

Abstract

This paper presents the numerical seismic analysis of isolated vernacular buildings characteristic of the Alentejo region, which is considered a medium seismic hazard region in Portugal. A representative isolated building was selected from a database, and a geometric model was defined for the numerical pushover analysis. Subsequently, a parametric analysis was carried out to assess the influence of distinct parameters on the seismic behaviour of such buildings.

Seismic analysis of Portuguese adobe buildings

“…A reduced number of ground motion records has been chosen for reasons of computational onus of the models, while a higher number of records employed would have led to a less discrete distribution of the probability points to which the lognormal distributions are fitted. Modelling approximations play a significant role too, since by assuming the connec-tions between orthogonal walls as perfect, the typical weaknesses and damaged condition of such (Ortega, Vasconcelos, Lourenço, Rodrigues, & Varum, 2015) are not represented. Strong connections are in fact not realistic for this type of buildings, which often experience out-of-plane failure mechanisms when subjected to seismic action.…”

Static Behavior of Cob: Experimental Testing and Finite-Element Modeling

“…Although in last decade several studies were carried out to numerically model the behaviour of earthen materials under both static (Piattoni et al 2011, Miccoli et al 2015a, 2015b, Giamundo et al 2014, Ortega et al 2015, Caporale et al 2015, Jaquin 2008, Nowamooz and Chazallon 2011, Bui et al 2016) and pseudodynamic loading (Gomes et al 2012, Garofano et al 2016, Miccoli et al 2016), references on the numerical modelling of cob constructions are not present in literature. The prediction of the non-linear behaviour has great importance to assess the seismic performances of a cob construction, where severe deformation is expected.…”