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Seismic response of a historic church considering pounding phenomena

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Abstract

The vulnerability of historic masonry structures and monuments under seismic loading including churches has been confirmed during major recent earthquake events. The current research focuses on pounding effects on masonry structures, a vulnerability factor that even though it is considered to be significant for the response of adjacent reinforced concrete structures is rarely taken into account for masonry structures in current engineering practice. The central church, the so called “Katholikon”, of the Kaisariani Monastery located in Athens, Greece, is selected as a case study of a historic structure that may present pounding phenomena because of its contact with an adjacent ecclesiastic structure, added during the 16th–17th centuries. The Katholikon, one of the finest Byzantine monuments of Greece, is a Byzantine crossed-dome church constructed during two separate structural phases build in contact during the 10th/11th and 16th/17th centuries, respectively. Based on data collected with the aid of an extensive experimental investigation of the monument different modeling approaches and different analysis methods were applied including time history and response spectrum analysis using the finite element method. The results indicate that pounding significantly affects the seismic response, while an individual analysis considering pounding is needed to provide accurate results. Also significant differences are observed between the results obtained from the response spectrum and the time history analysis suggesting that the usually applied response spectrum analysis does not always provide conservative results of the actual behavior.

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Abbreviations

a gR :

Reference peak ground acceleration on ground type A according to Eurocode 8

a g :

Peak ground acceleration on ground type A according to Eurocode 8

E :

Young’s modulus

f :

Tension or compression strength of masonry

f bc,b :

Compressive strength of brick

f bc,s :

Compressive strength of fossiliferous stone

f d,I :

Compressive strength of masonry of construction phase I

f d,II :

Compressive strength of masonry of construction phase II

f m :

Compressive strength of mortar

f t,I :

Tensile strength of masonry of construction phase I

f t,II :

Tensile strength of masonry of construction phase II

F y :

Section forces; normal force

h :

Overclosure

k 1 :

Coefficient of coherence between stone and mortar

k 2 :

Coefficient considering the degree of carving of the stones

L :

Sectional length of a wall

L c :

Length of the compression zone of the wall section

M z :

Section forces; in-plane bending moment

MRSA:

Modal response spectrum analysis

p :

Contact pressure

S :

Soil factor

SA :

Spectral acceleration

SRSS :

Square root of the sum of the squares superposition rule

T 1 :

Dominant period along the first horizontal direction x–x

T 2 :

Dominant period along the second horizontal direction z–z

U t,EW :

Total displacement of a point of the structure along the east–west horizontal direction

U r,EW :

Relative displacement of a point compared to the base of the structure along the east–west horizontal direction

V m :

Mortar volume

V W :

Masonry volume

W 1 :

Wall of the north facade that belongs to the initial construction phase I

W 2 :

Wall of the north facade that belongs to the second construction phase II

γ Rd :

Uncertainty coefficient

γ :

Slip between two surfaces in contact

γ Ι :

Importance factor

δ :

Ratio of the thickness of the outer and inner layers in three-leaf masonry

λ e , λ i :

Correction factors accounting for the interaction between external and internal leaves three-leaf masonry with λ e  < 1.0 and λ i  > 1.0

μ :

Friction coefficient

ν :

Poisson’s ratio

σ :

Normal stress

τ :

Shear stress

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Acknowledgements

The investigation was performed within the research project “Seismic Protection of Monuments and Historic Structures - SEISMO” which was co-financed by the Greek Ministry of Education and Religions and the European Union under the action “Thales” within the context of the Operational Programme - Education and Lifelong Learning, NSRF 2007-2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Earthquake Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Zografos, 15780 Athens, Greece

    Charilaos A. Maniatakis, Constantine C. Spyrakos, Panagiotis D. Kiriakopoulos & Kiriakos-Panayiotis Tsellos

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  1. Charilaos A. Maniatakis
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  2. Constantine C. Spyrakos
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  3. Panagiotis D. Kiriakopoulos
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  4. Kiriakos-Panayiotis Tsellos
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Correspondence to Charilaos A. Maniatakis.

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Maniatakis, C.A., Spyrakos, C.C., Kiriakopoulos, P.D. et al. Seismic response of a historic church considering pounding phenomena. Bull Earthquake Eng 16, 2913–2941 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-017-0293-5

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