Seismic performance of URM buildings: a probabilistic approach

The research conducted in this work focuses on the uncertainties related to the mechanical properties of the construction material of interest (i.e., unreinforced masonry -URM), and the influence of their variability on the seismic performance of a representative seven-story URM building of the Eixample district in Barcelona, Spain. The selected building typology represents 72 % of the building stock in this district, with a mean age of 90 years and the use of early council guidelines that are considered as pre-code rules. The results are presented in terms of correlations between damage parameters and material properties. A numerical model of the building was developed and, considering the variability of the material properties, a sample of 1000 numerical models has been used as a benchmark. The seismic response of each variant of the building’s numerical model is obtained through a simplified non-linear static procedure aiming to compare and categorize the influence of each of the selected mechanical properties on the seismic performance of the building. The analysis carried out shows that the variability in the material properties generates important uncertainties in the seismic response of these URM buildings, leading to over or underestimate the damage when performing the analysis for specific buildings and without a probabilistic approach.
This research has been partially funded by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICIN) through project with reference: PID2020-117374RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of the European Union (EU) through project with reference EFA158/16/POCRISC (INTERREG/POCTEFA. EU).
Postprint (published version)