Seismic assessment of historical masonry structures: The former Italian Embassy

Abstract

Preservation of architectural heritage placed in seismic regions is an important issue. This has emerged also from the requirements of the Eurocodes that are going to replace the current design code KTP-89. This paper investigates the structural behaviour of an existing masonry building (former Italian embassy; nowadays a monument of the second category) built in the 1930s in Tirana by means of finite element analysis. Preservation and rehabilitation of the building can be successfully achieved after a proper analysis of the structure. The static analysis of historical masonry building does not show problems to withstand vertical loads, thus attention is given to the seismic analysis. This is performed by static nonlinear procedure (pushover analysis). Building a reliable three-dimensional finite element model of the building is essential for the accuracy of the analysis results. The model assumes that the masonry structure is homogeneous and the material behaviour is nonlinear. The masonry material strength is based in laboratory tests performed on specimens extracted from the building. The geometry of the building was based on a 2007 architectural survey and on the original plans of the 1930s. The results of the finite element model will help to predict the local and global collapse mechanisms and assess the security based on the map of seismic risk in order to help in the identification of a proper retrofitting strategy.