In-plane seismic behaviour of historic stone masonry

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Abstract
Since the advent of the latest National building code of Canada, the level of intervention required to meet seismic requirements for the rehabilitation of heritage buildings has increased significantly. An example of this type of project is the rehabilitation of the West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Eight walls representative of the stone masonry in the West Block building were constructed, some with different rehabilitation schemes, and tested to investigate their in-plane seismic behaviour. The walls were double wythes of sandstone and limestone connected by a rubble core. The walls were 2750 mm high by 2000 mm wide by 540 mm thick. The rehabilitation schemes represented different ways of tying the stone wythes together, since the outer sandstone wythe has separated from the rubble core in some locations in the existing structure. The results reveal that the suggested strengthening schemes neither benefit nor degrade the in-plane seismic behaviour compared to that of a plain wall.