Impact of engineering modelling assumptions on assessing the seismic performance of Montgomery Block building.

Abstract

This study focuses on the Montgomery Block building, built in 1853 and which survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake of magnitude 8.3 despite being roughly 15 km from the ruptured San Andreas fault (Freeman 1932). After a review of the existing literature on the seismic performance of unreinforced masonry structures, a summary of the lessons to be learned and an identification of the areas that require further research is presented. Then, an assessment of the range of predicted seismic capacities as estimated from traditional and conservative methods to the most liberal ones for the selected Montgomery building is conducted. Finally, a comparison of these capacities is performed to illustrate the impact of structural engineering modelling decisions on the predicted seismic performance of URM buildings. From this study, it is clear that depending on the structural model selected by the engineer, considerable differences of nearly an order of magnitude in some cases may exist in the seismic performance assessments of URM buildings.