Seismic Analysis of one Heritage Compound Building of the Old Lisbon Town

Abstract

Architectural heritage is a key aspect to modern societies due to cultural and economical aspects. Besides a part of the history, tourism and leisure will be a major industry in the 3rd millennium and the existence of a monument or a monumental compound is often a key attraction of cities and countries. This paper presents a set of numeric analyses regarding a compound of buildings, the “Pombaline” downtown buildings, from the 18th century in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, built after the 1755 earthquake. The buildings were made with a composite wood-masonry structure. The following issues are addressed in the present study: (a) a historical survey, where the type of “Pombaline” construction was investigated; (b) an inspection of the actual condition of the selected compound; (c) a preliminary study of an isolated building where the finite element method was adopted for the analyses, introducing non-linear behaviour of the materials to simulate the structural damage; (d) a study with the complete building compound; and (e) a methodology for an adequate approach towards remedial measures in historical city centres.