Modelling and Analysis of Seismic Base-Isolated Masonry Heritage Structures

In recent years seismic base isolation has become a widely used technology for seismic protection of buildings since it is very effective in minimizing structural damage during strong earthquakes. Even though the idea of using various kinds of isolation devices as an earthquake mitigation method has been conceived centuries ago, its actual implementation has a history of only about 30 years. The paper analyses the applicability of seismic base isolation made of elastomeric bearings to unreinforced masonry (URM) structures of heritage architecture. A new method for the mathematical modelling of base- isolated URM structures is presented. The proposed approach is applied to an existing three!storey masonry building. In order to signify the advantages of implementing a base isolation system as a retrofit technique for masonry heritage structures a case study comparison of results obtained by non-linear static analyses and the N2 method on fixed base and base-isolated variants is presented.