EVALUATION OF CAPACITY AND SEISMIC PERFORMANCE OF BRICK MASONRY BUILDINGS WITH AND WITHOUT STRUCTURAL INTERVENTIONS

Abstract: Unreinforced masonry [URM] is the dominant structural type for low to moderate-rise buildings in the Albania. Its dynamic response is highly inelastic, and generally shows high vulnerability to earthquake loading. Also many buildings of these type in Albania have structural interventions like added floors, or wall openings, especially in the first floors of the buildings, which are near main roads, because of great demand for shops and stores. In literature, there are a number of methods available to evaluate the seismic performance of these buildings. The choice of the proper model to use is a matter of paramount importance, as many aspects must be taken into account in order to reach a good approximation of the structural behavior. Within this context, this paper aims to make seismic performance assessment by following the equivalent frame approach based on macro-element modeling. Due to the resource and time efficient computations, this approach is becoming more popular among the practitioners and field experts in this area and allows simulating the non-linear behavior of masonry buildings. This method will be applied to three old masonry buildings from the Albanian construction practice that are representatives of low- and mid-size residential buildings. These buildings are of the same template but some of them have structural interventions. It must be said that in Albania, masonry buildings have been built using templates all over the country, so both models with and without intervention are common. Capacity curves of the investigated building will be determined to assess the most probable seismic response of the investigated housing construction in the region. Also the Finally, estimated results will be used to evaluate the seismic performance of the tested structures.