3rd Croatian Conference on Earthquake Engineering 3CroCEE

A large number of cultural heritage buildings, especially in the Mediterranean area, belong to dry masonry stone structures. In order to be able to make decisions about possibly necessary rehabilitation techniques and to preserve them for future generations, it is necessary to have insight into their behaviour due to expected actions, the most destructive of which is an earthquake. As part of this work, an assessment of the seismic resistance of four dry stone masonry structures in the old centre of Split in Croatia was carried out: the bell tower of the Cathedral of Saint Domnius, the colonnade in front of the Cathedral, the Prothyron and the southeast tower in Diocletian's Palace. Numerical analyses were performed on plane models by the computer program Y-2D, which is based on the finite-discrete element method. In the conducted analyses, each stone block was modelled as one discrete element that can be found in mechanical interaction with other stone blocks. The mechanical interaction between discrete elements in the performed analyses was modelled through potential contact forces including frictional forces between blocks as the most important mechanism of seismic energy dissipation in these types of structures. Numerical analyses were performed for three different earthquakes whose acceleration amplitudes were incrementally increased until the complete collapse of the structure. The advantage of using such a numerical model is that, along with the assessment of the seismic resistance of the structure, it gives the expected mode of failure mechanism. This is very important information for taking measures in case of possibly necessary repairs of this type of construction.