Abstract
This paper presents a seismic vulnerability analysis of historic brick masonry buildings in Vienna, Austria from the period of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (1840–1918). The vulnerability study is based on comprehensive data from the devastating earthquake damage to the masonry buildings in Zagreb, Croatia on March 22, 2020, which are from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and comparable to Viennese buildings from that period, as well as on comprehensive numerical structural analyses calibrated on in situ test series. The statistical analysis of the earthquake damage to the Zagreb masonry stock and the comprehensive numerical simulations, allowed profound conclusions about the proportional damage distribution over individual structural areas of the masonry buildings, considering construction-specific characteristics such as the building height, the structural regularity/irregularity or the construction type under the ground level. This study enhances the still limited knowledge about the vulnerability of the historic brick masonry buildings from the period of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and allows extensive conclusions about the seismic vulnerability of these buildings.
Highlights
The risk assessment of the seismic vulnerability of historic brick masonry buildings is a challenging topic in Vienna, Austria due to the construction- and material-specific characteristics as well as the absence of seismic events with building damage
Due to the rarity of earthquakes, the historic brick-masonry building stock has not been subjected to any tests so far in the last decades to be able to draw any conclusions on the seismic vulnerability
Non-structural masonry represents the most vulnerable area for high damage under moderate seismicity based on their specific design (Kolbitsch 2012), which has been clearly shown by the earthquake damage of past earthquakes in Vienna (Drimmel and Duma 1974), (Gutdeutsch et al 1987) as well as by the earthquake damage in Zagreb 2020 (Atalic et al 2021b) and 1880 (Simovic 2000)
Summary
The risk assessment of the seismic vulnerability of historic brick masonry buildings is a challenging topic in Vienna, Austria due to the construction- and material-specific characteristics as well as the absence of seismic events with building damage. To provide a qualitative and realistic assessment of the vulnerability of the Viennese historic brick masonry buildings under seismic events, a comprehensive data base of observed structural damage to the masonry stock is essential. The last stronger earthquake in the Vienna area, the so-called “Seebenstein earthquake” in 1972, with an intensity of 6°–7° according to EMS-98 (Grunthal et al 1998), resulted mainly in damage to non-structural elements of the historic brick masonry stock (Duma 1988). The first part of this paper analyzes the seismic vulnerability of the historic brick masonry buildings based on the earthquake damage observed after the earthquake in Zagreb, Croatia on March 22, 2020. A pronounced damage pattern was found in the city center, especially in the three- to five-story masonry buildings from the period of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to 1918 (Savor Novak et al 2020; Atalic et al 2021b)
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