Masonry structures subjected to tsunami loads: Modeling issues and application to a case study

Abstract

Tsunamis are among the most dangerous natural disasters for coastal areas experiencing tsunami hazard. One of the major concerns in the assessment of strategies for the risk mitigation is to estimate vulnerability of structures and infrastructures. However, reliable approaches for the evaluation of the structural capacity under tsunami loads are nowadays not always available for all the types of structures, especially masonry. On this aim, the paper deals with the modeling issues of 3D masonry structures subjected to tsunami loads and the effect on the structural behavior of different modeling approaches. First, a brief state of the art on the available studies is presented regarding the evaluation of tsunami forces on buildings and the studies carried out on the determination of structural capacity.Then, an advanced structural analysis software based on the Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to analyze the influence of parameters such as load type, masonry type and interaction properties type. Finally, an application on a typical two-storey masonry structure subjected to tsunami load according to the actual codes is presented and discussed, providing recommendations on the assumptions to be made for the definition of a reliable numerical model.The findings of the numerical simulations revealed that the structural response is strongly influenced by the modeling approach defined for the masonry walls in terms of interaction properties and the type of connection between orthogonal walls. Moreover, it was observed that, as for the case of seismic analysis, when local behavior governs the failure, lower structural capacity is obtained, while in the case of global behavior governing the failure, higher structural performances are provided.