Collapse shake-table testing of a clay-URM building with chimneys

This paper discusses the results of a unidirectional shake-table test carried out on a full-scale unreinforced clay-brick masonry building with chimneys. The specimen embodied construction details representative of old detached single-storey houses of the Groningen province in the Netherlands, without any specific seismic-resistant detailing. The house featured a typical Dutch gambrel roof that allowed for living space above the attic floor, with high gables that were vulnerable to out-of-plane excitation. The floor consisted of timber joists and planks, resulting in a flexible diaphragm. Two clay-brick chimneys were included to investigate the performance of falling non-structural masonry elements in earthquakes. A cumulative incremental dynamic test was performed up to collapse conditions, using input ground motions compatible with induced seismicity scenarios for the examined region. The paper summarises the key characteristics of the specimen and the observations from the shake-table tests, illustrating the evolution of the structural and non-structural damage, and the dynamic response of the building. The attainment of significant damage limit states is correlated with experimentally defined engineering demand parameters and ground-motion intensity measures for the performance-based seismic assessment of unreinforced masonry buildings. All data from the tests are available upon request on www.eucentre.it/nam-project.