FEM modeling of the towers in Bayon temple in Cambodia based on micro-tremor measurements

Abstract

Bayon temple, Angkor, Cambodia, built in 13th century, is a dry-masonry temple made of sandstone which has deteriorated possibly due to rain, plants, settlements, and so on. Moreover, we may add wind induced direct or via-ground vibration to the list of deterioration causes since strong winds of more than 20 m/s was observed, which will require us to evaluate structural responses to the wind excitation. Based on micro-tremor measurements, we identified predominant frequencies, damping factors and base-fixed frequencies of the main tower and sub-towers in the temple and neighboring Prasat Sour Prat towers; FEM models were constructed by simulating the base-fixed natural frequencies of the horizontal translational modes. During the simulation, we had to reduce the elastic modulus of sandstone to less than 1/10 of typical value, which may suggest that the continuum modeling of dry-masonry structures is inappropriate.