RESEARCH ARTICLE
Seismic Assessment of St James Church by Means of Pushover Analysis – Before and After the New Zealand Earthquake
Ana S. Araujo*, Paulo B. Lourenco, Daniel V. Oliveira, Joao Leite
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2012Volume: 6
First Page: 160
Last Page: 172
Publisher ID: TOCIEJ-6-160
DOI: 10.2174/1874149501206010160
Article History:
Received Date: 6/3/2012Revision Received Date: 21/6/2012
Acceptance Date: 25/6/2012
Electronic publication date: 16/11/2012
Collection year: 2012
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The paper presents a numerical study for the seismic assessment of the St James Church in Christchurch, New Zealand affected by the recent 2011 earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. The structural behavior of the Church has been evaluated using the finite element modelling technique, in which the nonlinear behavior of masonry has been taken into account by proper constitutive assumptions. Two numerical models were constructed, one incorporating the existing structural damage and the other considering the intact structure. The validation of the numerical models was achieved by the calibration of the damaged model according to dynamic identification tests carried out in situ after the earthquake. Non-linear pushover analyses were carried out on both principal directions demonstrating that, as a result of the seismic action, the Church can no longer be considered safe. Pushover analysis results of the undamaged model show reasonable agreement with the visual inspection performed in situ, which further validates the model used. Finally, limit analysis us-ing macro-block analysis was also carried out to validate the main local collapse mechanisms of the Church.