- Seismic analysis of a typical masonry building from Barcelona’s Eixample District
- C. Potter
- Book Title / Journal: M.Sc Thesis, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
- Year: 2011 , Volume: , Series:
- Earthquake engineering
- Description
- The historic Eixample district of Barcelona is characterised by its beautiful avenues, laid out in grid
across the city. At first impression, the buildings lining these avenues appear identical, an unending
façade built to house the new Barcelona of the 20th Century. The unreinforced masonry buildings that
typify the development remain in use today, largely unaltered since their construction.
Unreinforced masonry buildings are among the most vulnerable structures to damage from seismic
actions. For the masonry buildings of the Eixample that house over 15% of the population of
Barcelona, this is no exception. This study performs a seismic analysis on a typical masonry building
of the Eixample to estimate and assess this damage. By doing so, it aims to estimate the likely
damage due to seismic actions, to identify critical elements of the structures and to quantify the need
for seismic risk maintenance and response plans.
The analysis uses the N2 Capacity Spectrum Method (Fajfar, 2000), adopted by Eurocode 8, to
determine the displacement demand of possible earthquake scenarios. A seismic hazard analysis
determines the seismic demand using deterministic, probabilistic and current European and Spanish
code provisions. The seismic demand is then compared to the results of a non-linear pushover
analysis completed using software DIANA (Version 9.4). The model geometry was based upon plans
of a building that well represents the typical unreinforced masonry buildings of the Eixample.
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