Numerical assessment of accumulated seismic damage in a historic masonry building. A case study

The current state of damage of a two-story unreinforced masonry historic building in Santiago de Chile is mainly due to the occurrence of the earthquakes of March 3, 1985 (Mw 8.0) and February 27, 2010 (Mw 8.8). Among the modern strategies available for a structural assessment of this type of constructions, nonlinear time-history analysis offers interesting possibilities but its use remains little explored because of their high computational demand. In this context, this article investigates the capabilities of a numerical strategy, based on macro-modelling, to simulate the accumulated seismic damage of a historic masonry building subjected to large seismic events. For this purpose, longitudinal and transverse components of accelerograms of the two large earthquakes that were recorded near the building are considered. Nonlinear time-history analyses were carried out in sequence using a global finite element (FE) model of the structure. The results show that the current crack pattern observed in the building can be simulated satisfactorily by the numerical approach adopted.