Abstract:
Due to the large number of existing unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings in New Zealand, and the significant seismic hazard that this building stock represents, a significant effort has been recently made to quantify the seismic behaviour of such buildings in order to provide assessment guidance to practicing structural engineers and to help inform seismic retrofit solutions. The current assessment guidelines have yet to be benchmarked with the results of a large scale test of typical URM buildings. In response, field testing was performed on a decommissioned vintage URM building to investigate the in-situ behaviour of URM piers and compare actual behaviour to that predicted by existing assessment frameworks. The tested building was a prototypical, three-storey, 1930s fired clay brick URM building located in Auckland, New Zealand. A pushover test was performed by applying a load to the roof level of the building with a 22 tonne excavator, resulting in the formation of a pier rocking mechanism consistent with the predicted modes determined using current assessment guidelines for URM piers.