Shaking table testing of multidrum columns and portals

Abstract

SUMMARY A common type of ancient monuments around the Mediterranean is the ancient Greek temple. Unfortunately, very few remain intact; most of them surviving in the form of free‐standing multidrum columns. Composed of stones resting on top of each other without any connection, such columns are considered vulnerable to earthquakes. The paper presents an experimental study of such structures, aiming to explore their seismic vulnerability and derive insights on the key factors affecting their response. Reduced scale models of a single multidrum column and of a portal were tested at the shaking table of the National Technical University of Athens Laboratory of Soil Mechanics. The models, constructed of marble just as the originals, were excited by idealized Ricker pulses and real seismic records. Single columns exhibit a remarkable earthquake resistance. Subjected to the strongest motions ever recorded in Greece, where many such monuments are situated, the columns hardly suffered any permanent deformation. Collapse is probable only for extremely harsh directivity‐affected seismic motions. Portals proved even more robust, surviving extreme seismic excitations. Their superior performance is related to the beneficial role of the epistyle, which adds energy dissipation and restoring force to the system. Their performance is very sensitive to minor changes in geometry or input motion. The complexity increases exponentially with the number of drums, being directly associated with the number of drum‐to‐drum interfaces and the increased probability of interface imperfections. In contrast to PGA, the maximum spectral displacement SDmax and the length scale Lp have turned out to be effective intensity measures. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comparative Assessment of Two Rocking Isolation Techniques for a Motorway Overpass Bridge

“…Therefore, the frame is more stable than a column alone, even though its center of mass lies higher. The above finding has been also confirmed experimentally by Drosos and Anastasopoulos (2014) and has been proven for non-symmetric rocking frames (Dimitrakopoulos and Giouvanidis, 2015). The same conclusion holds even when the column flexibility is taken into account (Acikgoz and DeJong, 2012;Vassiliou et al, 2014Vassiliou et al, , 2017a.…”

Non-linear static behaviour of ancient free-standing stone columns

“…Since intrusive tests on archaeological structures are not permitted, in most of the cases, material properties for the stone blocks and joints were obtained from previous small scaled laboratory works and related experimental studies (Papantonopoulos et al 2002;Drosos and Anastasopoulos 2014). The material parameters used for the development of the numerical models are shown in Table 2.…”

“…The sensitive seismic performance of portal frames was examined under idealized Ricker pulses and real seismic records. Advantage of the architrave in terms of restoring capacity was observed, and main features of dynamic response, such as rocking, sliding or a combination of two, were captured (Drosos & Anastasopoulos 2014). In addition, comprehensive numerical simulations, including parametric studies related with the geometrical properties of ancient columns and colonnades with an architrave, were performed using custom-made software by Papaloizou and Komodromos (2009).…”

Probabilistic Validation of the Housner Rocking Model

“…the input to the shaking table) and of the measured shaking table motion are shown. The mean of the displacement spectra of the 100 motions is also plot, as several researchers report that the maximum of the Elastic Displacement Spectrum is a good measure of the overturning potential of a ground motion [57][58][59].…”