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118
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
February 2020 - January 2021
April 2019 - September 2019
November 2018 - February 2019
Education
October 2014 - November 2018
September 2009 - June 2013
Publications
Publications (17)
Unreinforced masonry structures, particularly façade walls, are seismically vulnerable due to their weak connections with adjacent walls, floors, and/or roofs. During an earthquake, such walls formulate local mechanisms prone to out-of-plane collapse. This behavior has been largely investigated using classical rocking theory, which assumes the stru...
Masonry structures have been observed to display a high vulnerability to failure under seismic action. This stems from the fact that their structural configurations usually lack adequate connections among the distinct elements, resulting in the formation of local mechanisms experiencing Out-Of-Plane (OOP) collapse. In this context, rocking dynamics...
This paper presents a user-friendly, CAD-interfaced methodology for the rapid seismic assessment of historic masonry structures. The proposed multi-level procedure consists of a two-step analysis that combines upper bound limit analysis with non-linear dynamic (rocking) analysis to solve for seismic collapse in a computationally-efficient manner. I...
A blind prediction contest was organized to evaluate the ability of different modeling approaches to simulate the seismic rocking response of a full-scale four-column podium structure. The structure was tested on a shake table, and was subjected to two bidirectional ground motion ensembles comprising 100 synthetic records each. This short communica...
Collapse of masonry structures under the influence of seismic action typically takes place via specific failure mechanisms, which have been well-documented. Assuming these mechanisms can be modelled as a kinematic chain, equations of motion can be derived and solved to predict dynamic rocking response. Previous derivations typically assume that the...
The authors characterized earthen wall materials and plasters in a mid-fourteenth-century Hohokam great house at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (Arizona) and assessed the seismic susceptibility of its puddled earth walls. Characterization included determining the microstructure, microcomposition, porosity, aggregate mineralogy, and identificat...
This paper presents a new CAD-interfaced analytical tool for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of masonry collapse mechanisms. Utilizing rocking dynamics, the tool derives and solves equations of motion for a broad range of collapse mechanisms, for any user-defined structural geometry. Using as a starting point a digital drawing of the structure in Rh...
Out-of-plane collapse of walls is perhaps one of the most common modes of failure of masonry structures during earthquakes. Depending on the restraint conditions, walls can fail by developing a hinge along their height, thereby resulting in the formation of a two-block out-of-plane collapse mechanism. Equations of motion derived for this mechanism...
Failure of masonry structures generally occurs via specific collapse mechanisms which have been well documented. Using rocking dynamics, equations of motion have been derived for a number of different failure mechanisms ranging from the simple overturning of a single block to more complicated mechanisms. However, most of the equations of motion der...
Earthquakes represent a serious threat to the safety of masonry structures, with failure of these constructions under the influence of seismic action generally occurring via specific, well-documented collapse mechanisms. Analysis and assessment of these collapse mechanisms remains a challenge - while most analysis tools are time-consuming and compu...
This paper studies damage to a few specific monuments in the Kathmandu Valley that were either partially or completely destroyed during the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. Three of these structures—namely, the Basantapur Column, the Dharahara Tower, and the Narayan Temple—were modeled both analytically using rocking dynamics and computationally using discr...
Typical out-of-plane collapse mechanisms for unreinforced masonry structures have been well documented. During assessment, these collapse mechanisms are usually evaluated from a static perspective, in order to determine the ground acceleration which would activate the mechanism. As the structure can resist larger ground motions due to dynamic resis...
The 2015 Nepal Earthquake caused significant localized damage to several historic centers in the Kathmandu Valley. In particular, many cultural heritage structures were either partially or completely destroyed. This pa-per studies the destruction sustained by a few specific monuments in order to clarify the poor performance of certain structures in...
The Taj Mahal, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to commemorate the death of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, is considered to be a marvel of Mughal construction. While the structure has been studied in great detail from an architectural perspective, limited studies have been conducted with respect to its structural stability. Furthermore, very little i...
Large displacement response of stone masonry structures often involves the opening and closing of dry joints, or hinging behaviour. Discrete element modelling (DEM) is often used to model large displacement response as it inherently captures the interaction of discrete bodies, and allows for joint contact recognition in a more efficient manner than...
Trajan's Bridge, built by Romans over the Danube River in the first years of the II century, was the first kilometer-long bridge ever built. It was a marvel of Roman engineering, especially taking into account challenging site conditions, available resources and record time for construction. The bridge's still-standing columns are witnesses to its...
Projects
Project (1)
Built historic masonry structures are important cultural assets in Europe, playing a key role in the economy, through tourism. Their correct maintenance/assessment is thus unavoidable, while they are very sensitive to out-of-plane loading through earthquake motions.
The present project aims at defining new standards for the out-of-plane performance assessment of masonry structures. It follows a very complete process, from the study of the seismic input, to the seismic capacity of masonry structures and the occurence of specific damage limit state.
1) Sampling of realistic earthquake motions generated from real earthquakes, parameter representative variation and Monte-Carlo simulations
2) Extensive shaking-table testing of masonry specimens (plastered, mortared, dry-stack, rocking blocks) under various input signals. Use of state-of-art Non-Damaging-Testing methods (DIC, sonic tests, infrare thermography, ...)
3) Development and validation of intermediate numerical approaches (Rocking dynamics, Macro-element models) against the extensive experimental dataset in a probabilistic way. Incremental Dynamic Analysis used to build up the response statistics.
4) Definition of specific limit state for built heritage (e.g associated to the safeguard of mural paintings) in terms of out-of-plane displacement. Extraction of guidelines for performance assessment of heritage buildings.
