Seismic Assessment of an Irregular Unreinforced Masonry Building

Abstract

The paper presents a study on a construction, erected in the 1870–1920 period, composed of two interconnected buildings. The main A building is reserved to living, having a basement, ground floor, one story, penthouse and a loft. The building is approximately rectangular with a dead wall on the North side property limit, being connected with the B building on the South side. Located on the South, the B building is an exterior staircase with a terrace floor and a penthouse, being an unique element as conception in the beginning twentieth century architecture of Bucharest. The construction is not classified as a historical monument, but is placed in the protected area of a historical monument of class B (LMI 2015: B-II-m-B-19768). The construction has several deficiencies of which the most important is the differential settlement of about 25 cm in transversal direction, respectively 10 cm in the longitudinal direction. The irregular shape, because of the link between the two buildings, leading to major torsional effects and the presence of some structural walls, supported directly by the floors, are other deficiencies of the construction. The seismic evaluation was carried out by linear static and dynamic analyses, taking into account the second order effect. There were proposed strengthening and straightening solutions for the construction. For building strengthening seismic isolation method was adopted, reducing drastically the torsion effects and the efforts in the structural elements. Building straightening was achieved by means of compensation presses placed at the basement level.