Seismic Behavior of Masonry Cloister Vaults

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an investigation into earthquake resistance and the behavior of historical masonry cloister vaults. In a previous paper,1 the authors presented a simpli ed structural analysis approach, called the “strip method of analysis,” to assess the lateral load behavior of a relatively shallow cloister vault. In this paper, two cloister vaults with the same span but with different crown heights are stud- ied. The vault material is assumed to be elastic and a linear thin shell F.E.A. is used for analysis under gravity loads and seismic loads. Nodal reaction components and diaphragm shears are compared for the two cloister vaults, along with those obtained using the strip method of anal- ysis. A compression surface is determined for a selected nite element strip based on in-plane compression forces and out-of-plane bending moments. This is to indicate where tensile stresses will develop due to bending and hence where the vault will develop cracking and go into a limit state. The results include contour plots of membrane stresses, shear stresses, bending stresses and deformations in the masonry cloister vaults under gravity and lateral loads, as well as a representa- tion of the lateral load resistance mechanism of masonry cloister vaults when subjected to earthquakes.