Nonlinear Static and Dynamic Response of a Random Rubble Stone Masonry Building with Horizontal Seismic Bands

Seismic bands are frequently employed as an earthquake-resilient technique to enhance the performance of random rubble (RR) stone masonry buildings. This study quantifies the effect of five possible scenarios of roof diaphragms in RR stone masonry along with the seismic bands at roof, lintel, and sill levels and stitch bands at corners under seismic forces. A single-story school building is numerically modeled through finite element analysis adopting the macro modeling technique. The stone masonry building is investigated for static as well as dynamic loading by performing pushover and time-history analysis. Spectrum-matched ground motions are considered to perform the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and the fragility curves of RR stone masonry buildings are generated with four defined damage states. The base shear capacity of an RR stone masonry building with wooden roof and seismic bands at the roof and lintel level has shown a notable increase of 73%. The insertion of stitch bands in between the lintel and sill level at the corner and T-junction of walls of the building has reduced the vulnerability of the building at various damage states. The obtained results highlight that at maximum credible earthquake (peak ground acceleration = 0.36 g), the probability of near collapse of stone masonry having a wooden roof with two and four bands is reduced by 70% and 90%, respectively, as compared to buildings without bands. The study signifies the importance of horizontal bands in providing the desirable seismic performance for building with diaphragms and also for building with negligible diaphragm contribution.