1.

Introduction

Historical masonry towers constitute an important part of the architectural and

cultural heritage of humanity. Since they are often located in earthquake-prone
regions, understanding behavior of such structures under horizontal loads appears to
be necessary. Originally, masonry towers have been conceived to sustain solely
vertical loads because practitioners of ancient time have been ignorant about
detrimental seismic effects. In relatively recent time, however, scientific community
has become aware of the importance for their seismic protection. Moreover, Italian
and international standards have imposed the assessment of structural performance
subject to horizontal loads even by using the most sophisticated numerical tools. This
concern comes from heavily damaged or even collapsed historical masonry structures
in the past due to catastrophic seismic events. However, as previously mentioned, the
seismic action is not the only load that attacks the structure, but self-weight which
may produce the stress which is usually of the order of magnitude as the compressive
strength of the masonry. This is due to massiveness of the structure itself. This
consideration leads to the conclusion that combination of effects must be taken into
account. The problem seems ordinary, but it’s not that much simple keeping in mind
complex geometry, irregularities, high degree of inhomogeneity that may cause stress
concentration leading to local collapse etc. The structural failure can be driven even
by a moderate increase in the stress level, which can occur during seismic events or in
the presence of long-term loads. [1] Although the great progress in technology,
seismology and earthquake engineering, the preservation of these brittle and massive
structures still represents a major challenge [2].
What is interesting in particular, and what this work deals with, is behavior of
historical masonry towers that are, in principle, slender structures which exhibit
particular architectural features and might remarkably differ in terms of dynamic
behavior depending on many factors such as geometry, slenderness, presence of
internal vaults and staircases, global inclination, distribution of existing damages etc.
All structures whose height is significant with respect to base dimensions may be
considered that have tower-like behavior. Such structures are chimneys, bell towers,
lighthouses, minarets etc. These kinds of structures have some peculiarities in their
dynamic behavior that may be frequently found as complicated in terms of many
aspects. Consequently, designer has to pay detailed attention while dealing with
behavior of towers starting from intensity and frequency content of relevant seismic
events characteristic for the site, soil properties, soil-structure interaction and so on
to the dynamic properties of the tower body and resistance of individual tower part
such as spire, bell cell that may appear as the most vulnerable and critical parts in
overall dynamic response. Understandably, as always, all numerical analyses are
performed including some uncertain parameters related to material properties and
boundary conditions. So, some in-situ surveys regarding any kind of property are
extremely useful.
Over the last decades, the research in the monumental and historical structures
developed widely, considering and improving methodology and techniques for
diagnosis and restoration. Some interesting studies in this field are related with
seismic behavior of the masonry towers, mainly since several collapses have been
registered in Italy (Pavia, Florence, Bologna), in Europe and eastern Asia (China) that
are only few examples in rich history of different dynamic responses of masonry
towers and other masonry structures [2]. The presence of uncertainties about the
elastic characteristics of masonry material, resistance, the soil, foundation condition,
mostly under dynamic condition, makes engineers significantly ignorant about real
behavior of the structure.
In the first part of this thesis, the subject concerns generalities on masonry as
structural material with emphasis of its behavior in seismic-prone regions, seismicity
of the site, dynamic behavior of masonry towers and methods of modelling and
analyses.