Abstract

Complex masonry monuments represent an important part of the built cultural heritage and most of them are vulnerable to seismic actions. Their large scale, irregularity, and heterogeneity makes it challenging to characterize their structural behaviour. This work addresses the state of conservation as well as the structural behaviour and seismic vulnerability of the most ancient body of the National Palace of Sintra, Portugal: the Bonet building. This body was built on top of Arabic foundations during the reign of King Dinis, around the year 1281, and since then few alterations were made to the building. In order to minimize the multiple uncertainties usually existing in complex masonry buildings, whether related to geometry or masonry mechanical properties, a detailed structural survey was conducted together with different in-situ experimental tests. All the tests performed were important to the adequate characterization of the building and the calibration of the numerical models. The final values adopted for the mechanical properties of the rubble stone masonry are presented and can be used as a reference for future works in ancient Portuguese monuments of the same period. Afterwards, nonlinear static analyses were performed in two different software (3MURI and ABAQUS). Comparisons and discussion of the results are made. The differences in modelling strategies and characterization of materials between the two software are considered with regard to their realism, computational effort, data availability and applicability to large scale structures. Efforts to calibrate and obtain the same behaviour of the building for the different software were made, involving geometry, boundary conditions and characterization of the material constitutive laws.