Masonry structures constitute an important part of the built environment and architectural heritage in seismic areas. A large number these old showed inadequate performance suffered substantial damage under past earthquakes. Realistic numerical models are required for accurate response predictions addressing implementation effective strengthening solutions. comprehensive mesoscale modeling stra...

The purpose of this research program is to investigate the dynamic failure properties of an unreinforced masonry panel under controlled dynamic loading conditions. This rig design is based on the classic diamond loading pattern. It is designed to achieve a uniform stress over the central area of the panel. The aim of the measurements will be to measure the rate of damage evolution in an inital ...

The assessment of the seismic vulnerability of all school buildings located at Chorrillos and Barranco districts in Lima, the capital city of Peru, was conducted using the Rapid Visual Screening procedure of ATC-21. A total of 28 school buildings were evaluated in Barranco, and 80 in Chorrillos, comprising all kindergarten, primary, and secondary school buildings existing in these two districts...

In the last decade, displacement-based seismic design procedures have been recognised to be effective alternatives to force-based design (FBD) methods. Indeed, displacement based design (DBD) may allow the structural engineer to get more realistic predictions of local and global deformations of the structure, and hence damage, under design earthquakes. This facilitates the achievement of perfor...

The seismic response of five cultural heritage towers erected between the 10th and 19th century AD are investigated herein. Firstly, their architectural modal characteristics were studied in light events that hit monuments. There exist several historical reports strong earthquakes, as well damaged structures collapses. limit analysis is adopted to examine post-elastic behavior up collapse due o...

On April 25, 2015, a M7.8 earthquake rattled central Nepal; ground motion recorded in Kantipath, Kathmandu, 76.86 km east of the epicenter suggested that the low-frequency component was dominant. We consider data from eight aftershocks following the Gorkha earthquake and analyze ground motion characteristics; we found that most of the ground motion records are dominated by low frequencies for e...

Masonry buildings constitute a significant portion of the architectural heritage all over world, also in regions affected by high seismic hazard. Since this constructional material is characterized lack tensile strength, as well small deformation capacity, masonry structures could result hugely damaged if shaken forces. In order to avoid collapses and reduce structural damage, innovative retrof...