Earthquake Safety of Masonry and Reinforced Concrete Buildings

ABSTRACT In this study firstly residential building typologies of some small-scale cities in earthquake prone areas of Turkey are investigated and 4-storey masonry residential buildings is proposed instead of multi-story reinforced concrete apartment blocks for these cities. Here, it is aimed to enliven the use of masonry again in these regions. To achieve this aim it is necessary to verify the fact that it is possible to construct a four-story residential building with masonry bearing walls instead of reinforced concrete beam and column skeleton system keeping the existing plan scheme in other words without changing its architectural characteristics. In order to do this, 3D models are created to compare the behaviours of the masonry building and reinforced concrete building. The behavioural investigation of the two models is performed in the finite element platform with the help of SAP 2000. Finally it is certified that this proposal is successfully efficient.