Centrifuge modelling on seismic behaviour of stone architectural heritages

Many stone architectural heritages include masonry structures that appear to be vulnerable to horizontal dynamic loads such as earthquakes. However, such structures have stood for thousands of years despite numerous historic earthquakes. This study proposes dynamic centrifuge modelling tests as a way of seismic risk assessment in order to find out how stone architectural heritages with masonry structures endured the seismic load, and whether there is any possibility of future earthquake damage. The seismic behaviour of a three-storey, freestanding stone block structure was modelled and tested within a centrifuge. Models were made at three different scales and dynamic tests were conducted using differing centrifugal acceleration fields so that the behaviours could be transformed to an equivalent fullscale prototype and compared. This modelling of models procedure confirms that the seismic behaviour of stone structures can be predicted using scaled-down models. Dynamic centrifuge tests on one fifteenth scale models of two representative stone architectural heritages in Korea were then conducted. The seismic behaviour of the architectural heritages is then predicted in the event of earthquakes.