Abstract

Stone masonry is the oldest form of construction in the world until the beginning of the 20th century. The first stone walls were constructed by farmers and primitive people by piling loose field stones into a dry stone wall. Later, mortar and plaster were used, especially in the construction of city walls, castles, and other fortifications before and during the Middle Ages. These stone walls are spread throughout the world in different forms. Stone walls are usually made of local materials varying from limestone and flint to granite and sandstone. However, the quality of building stone varies greatly, both in its endurance to weathering, resistance to water penetration and in its ability to be worked into regular shapes before construction. Also, the majority of buildings in Greece at the end of 19th century up to the use of concrete in constructions are load-bearing stone masonry structures. Moreover, research shows that it is the most widely construction material in industrial buildings, that era. As it is known, stone masonry has high compression strength under vertical loads but has low tensile strength (against twisting or stretching) unless reinforced, while the tensile strength of masonry walls can be increased by thickening the wall. In general, industrial buildings constructed of stone masonry, from late 19th to early 20th century, have particularities in their typology because they were directly dependent on their mechanical equipment and production line. The aim of this study is to investigate the contribution of stone masonry as a construction material in the typology of these industrial buildings concerning their durability.

Abstract

A brief description of the damages observed after the occurrence of the September 2017 earthquakes in some temples located in the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Morelos is presented. A total of 48 temples were visited where we observed partial or total collapses of structural elements as: towers, roofs, buttresses, walls and arches in the temples. In some cases, the level of the damage was so severe that compromised the stability of the temples.

Abstract

In many historical centres in Europe, stone masonry buildings are part of building aggregates, which developed when the layout of the city or village was densified. In these aggregates, adjacent buildings share structural walls to support floors and roofs. Meanwhile, the masonry walls of the façades of adjacent buildings are often connected by dry joints since adjacent buildings were constructed at different times. Observations after for example the recent Central Italy earthquakes showed that the dry joints between the building units were often the first elements to be damaged. As a result, the joints opened up leading to pounding between the building units and a complicated interaction at floor and roof beam supports. The analysis of such building aggregates is very challenging and modelling guidelines do not exist. Advances in the development of analysis methods have been impeded by the lack of experimental data on the seismic response of such aggregates. The objective of the project AIMS (Seismic Testing of Adjacent Interacting Masonry Structures), included in the H2020 project SERA, is to provide such experimental data by testing an aggregate of two buildings under two horizontal components of dynamic excitation. The test unit is built at half-scale, with a two-storey building and a one-storey building. The buildings share one common wall while the façade walls are connected by dry joints. The floors are at different heights leading to a complex dynamic response of this smallest possible building aggregate. The shake table test is conducted at the LNEC seismic testing facility. The testing sequence comprises four levels of shaking: 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of nominal shaking table capacity. Extensive instrumentation, including accelerometers, displacement transducers and optical measurement systems, provides detailed information on the building aggregate response. Special attention is paid to the interface opening, the global behaviour in relation to the interface separation, interstorey drifts and out-of-plane displacements.