Material that fractures under low stress without appreciable deformation.
Published in Chapter:
Ancient Materials and Singular Constructions: Numerical, Experimental, and Heritage Strategies to Preserve Masonry Structures in Seismic Areas
Paloma Pineda (University of Seville, Spain)
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 20
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8286-3.ch021
Abstract
Analysis and evaluation of seismic reliability of masonry cultural heritage buildings by means of numerical models is a difficult task, owing to uncertainties that mainly affect structural behaviour and mechanical material properties. The former includes lack of information on model definition -geometry, constraints, materials, constructive details...-, and the latter is focused on non-linear masonry behaviour and low tensile strength. Furthermore, if a comprehensive study of structural behaviour is going to be performed, accuracy and suitability of the analytical or numerical method selected are essential issues. For those reasons, multidisciplinary analyses combining numerical, experimental and heritage tools may be very useful to face the challenge of effective preservation. This chapter focuses on the role of the building materials as controllers of collapse phenomena under seismic loading. The first section is devoted to some heritage strategies that may be learnt from the wisdom of ancient builders. The second section focuses on numerical strategies, reviewing different constitutive models via FEM under seismic loading and analysing the role of the control parameters. That section provides a brief reflexion on different analytical strategies. Finally, as a way of conclusion, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of historic building materials and associated techniques within a dynamic framework, by means of multidisciplinary tools is provided.