TARQUE, NICOLA1; CAMATA, GUIDO2; BLONDET, MARCIAL3; SPACONE, ENRICO4; VARUM, HUMBERTO5

1) Associate Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Department of Civil Engineering, sntarque@pucp.edu.pe

2) Assistant Professor, University Gabriele D’Annunzio Chieti-Pescara, Department of Engineering and Geology, g.camata@unich.it

3) Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Department of Civil Engineering, mblondet@pucp.pe

4) Professor, University Gabriele D’Annunzio Chieti-Pescara, Department of Engineering and Geology, espacone@unich.it

5) Associate Professor, University of Aveiro, Department of Civil Engineering, hvarum@ua.pt

Adobe dwellings, especially those placed along the coastal Peruvian area, have a high seismic vulnerability due to the low material strength and due to the inadequate structural configuration (e.g. big openings, thinner walls, lack of reinforcement, etc.). The seismic behaviour of these structures is often investigated with experimental tests. However, these tests are costly and sometimes not easy to perform due to the geometrical dimensions and limitations of the laboratories. Numerical analyses are a viable alternative to the experimental work. The numerical analyses give the possibility to develop parametric studies and to understand the seismic behaviour of structural systems. Taking advantage of some experimental tests, this paper shows a strategy to numerically reproduce the in-plane monotonic behaviour of unreinforced and reinforced adobe walls. For this, a damaged plasticity model within finite element method is used to represent the adobe masonry as a homogeneous, continuum and isotropic material.

Keywords: adobe wall, numerical model, in-plane behaviour, finite element model