Seismic Behavior Assessment of a Brazilian Heritage Construction

Preservation of historical constructions, and passing it on to future generations, is a major issue in modern societies. Earthquakes are one of the major causes of damages to heritage buildings across the world. The city of Sobral (Ceará State, Brazil) keeps in its historic center a large number of heritage buildings and, since 2008, an intense seismic activity has been observed. This study aims to contribute to the preservation of the Sobral heritage constructions against seismic loads through the assessment of the seismic behavior of one representative building: the Nossa Senhora das Dores Church, a 19th century historical construction. First, a 3D finite element (FE) model was built and tuned according to the results of dynamic tests performed under environmental loads. Next, the FE model was employed to assess the seismic behavior of the church by performing linear time-history analyses employing two real earthquakes. The results showed big displacements and high stresses in many parts of the church, allowing to identify the most critical and most susceptible to damage areas (based on the seismic scenarios considered). These results can be considered as a support for seismic retrofitting measures to be adopted on Sobral heritage constructions.