Seismic Behavior Assessment of a Brazilian Heritage Construction

Francisco Da Silva Brandão,Michele Betti,João Fernandes,Aldecira Diógenes,Esequiel Mesquita

doi:10.3221/igf-esis.45.02

Francisco Da Silva Brandão, Michele Betti + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3221/igf-esis.45.02

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Abstract

Preservation of historical constructions, and passing it on to future generations, is a major issue in modern societies. Earthquakes are one of the major causes of damages to heritage buildings across the world. The city of Sobral (Ceara State, Brazil) keeps in its historic center a large number of heritage buildings and, since 2008, an intense seismic activity has been observed. This study aims to contribute to the preservation of the Sobral heritage constructions against seismic loads through the assessment of the seismic behavior of one representative building: the Nossa Senhora das Dores Church, a 19th century historical construction. First, a 3D finite element (FE) model was built and tuned according to the results of dynamic tests performed under environmental loads. Next, the FE model was employed to assess the seismic behavior of the church by performing linear time-history analyses employing two real earthquakes. The results showed big displacements and high stresses in many parts of the church, allowing to identify the most critical and most susceptible to damage areas (based on the seismic scenarios considered). These results can be considered as a support for seismic retrofitting measures to be adopted on Sobral heritage constructions.

Highlights

Heritage constructions are a special group of structures with high artistic, cultural, religious, documental or aesthetics value for the society
A large number of heritage constructions are located in seismic areas with different levels of seismic hazards, and there is a great interest from both the local administrations and the international organizations (UNESCO, ICOMOS, World Bank, etc.) to promote and support ad-hoc actions aimed to their preservation and maintenance
The paper investigated the seismic behavior of Nossa Senhora das Dores Church, an important heritage construction within the historic city center of Sobral (Ceará State, Brazil)

Summary

Introduction

Heritage constructions are a special group of structures with high artistic, cultural, religious, documental or aesthetics value for the society. A large number of heritage constructions are located in seismic areas with different levels of seismic hazards, and there is a great interest from both the local administrations and the international organizations (UNESCO, ICOMOS, World Bank, etc.) to promote and support ad-hoc actions aimed to their preservation and maintenance In this framework, based on the conservation of the World Heritage against earthquake loads, the scientific community plays a pivotal role, as evidenced by the great number of researches published on this field in recent years [6, 7]. Aiming to contribute to preservation and safety of Sobral heritage constructions under seismic actions, this paper presents a seismic behavior assessment of a very important heritage construction from Sobral historic center, namely Nossa Senhora das Dores Church, a structure dating back the beginning of the 19th century, built in solid bricks masonry and located near Acaraú River. The seismic analysis reported was aimed at a preliminary evaluation of the potential effects induced by seismic loading, assessing the structural elements that require a detailed and specific investigation

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