Modeling of monolithic ancient columns and colonnades under seismic loading

Diamantopoulos S., Fragiadakis M. (2021). Modeling of monolithic ancient columns and colonnades under seismic loading. in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Protection of Historical Constructions (PROHITECH 2020), 25-27 October, 2021, Athens, Greece.

Abstract | The paper presents a novel modeling approach for the planar response assessment of monolithic ancient columns and colonnades. The proposed approach consists of beam element(s) equipped with a negative stiffness nonlinear rotational spring at the base, while the mass and the rotational moment of inertia are lumped at the center of mass, or are distributed along the height of the column. Jumps and wobbling are omitted since a two-dimensional model is proposed, while sliding is not taken into consideration. The paper discusses the implementation and the restrictions of the model and investigates different moment-rotation relationships that can be adopted. The work aims to propose a novel framework that is applicable to a variety of ancient structures and can be easily implemented. Furthermore, the extension of the proposed modelling on a rocking frame with two equal columns and N rocking columns that are capped with an architrave (colonnade) is discussed. Such rocking structures are found in ancient moment, e.g. the Aphaia Temple in Aigina, Greece. A special, “event-based”, approach is proposed for modelling energy dissipation due to rocking response. Ground motion records are used in order to assess the accuracy of the proposed modeling and its extension to more complicated rocking problems.