Dynamic behavior of masonry chimney with different reinforcement schemes

Abstract

This paper presents a structural analysis of a masonry chimney built in the 1950’s, which is currently being catalogued as local interest heritage. These structures exhibit insufficient tensile strength to resist the seismic action because the masonry is not reinforced. For this reason, the aim of this work is to analyze different structural reinforcement schemes so the chimney is capable of withstanding seismic actions. Ten numerical models, for nine reinforcement configurations, have been defined using Ansys software. A glass fiber reinforced cement composite was always used as reinforcement. For each model, a modal analysis and time history analyses were made. Five different synthetic accelerograms were used for the structural analysis, according to NCSE02 Spanish standard. The final reinforcement, capable of resisting the seismic action, consisted of a helicoid wrap and eight longitudinal stripes along the shaft, and the inner and outer reinforcement of all masonry walls of the base.