Nat Hazards

DOI 10.1007/s11069-014-1253-x

ORIGINAL PAPER

Fragility curves for masonry structures submitted

to permanent ground displacements and earthquakes

C. Negulescu • T. Ulrich • A. Baills • D. M. Seyedi

Received: 2 December 2013 / Accepted: 18 May 2014

Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract Usually, the vulnerability of structures is treated considering only one single
hazard, for example either seismic hazard or ground instability. However, historical
monuments, cultural heritage structures or old masonry structures can be affected, over the
past centuries of existence, by a succession of different hazards. The objective of this paper
was to quantify the changes in the seismic vulnerability of a given structure previously
damaged by quasi-static differential settlements. In view of this, a soil-structure model of
the masonry building is constructed using TREMURI software by putting springs at the
base of the building to account for the soil behaviour. Classical empirical relationships are
used for setting the mechanical properties of these foundation springs. The chosen equa-
tions are valid for both static and dynamic situations. The soil-structure model is first
submitted to differential settlements with maximum magnitudes ranging from 5 to 25 cm.
Then, the damaged structures are submitted to a set of time-histories. Fragility curves
taking into consideration permanent differential settlements are finally obtained, using a
modified regression technique accounting for the presence of residual drift due to the prior
static loading.

Keywords Differential settlement  Earthquake  Residual drift  Damage 

Fragility curves

C. Negulescu (&)  T. Ulrich  A. Baills  D. M. Seyedi

BRGM, 3 Avenue Claude Guillemin, 45060 Orléans, France
e-mail: c.negulescu@brgm.fr

Present Address:
D. M. Seyedi
ANDRA, 1-7 Rue Jean Monnet, 92280 Chatenay-Malabry, France

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1 Introduction

Historical structures and old town centres represent an important fragment of the existing
building stock and a valuable and irreplaceable part of the urban heritage. Many of these
old structures present damage due to previous earthquakes or due to changes in the soil
conditions. Many recent works and studies can be found in specialised literature con-
cerning the earthquake response of monuments and old masonry structures (e.g. Ramos
et al. 2005; Pitilakis et al. 2007; Cuadra et al. 2008; Cattari et al. 2013; Lagomarsino and
Cattari 2013). Syrmakezis (2006) presents a methodology for the seismic protection of
historical and monumental structures, adapted to their specific characteristics. The author
emphasises that the analysis of a historical building must be based on the structure as it is;
thus, geometrical irregularities as well as the damaged or even missing structural elements
must be considered. Moreover, the difficulty for an engineer to take into consideration the
cracks and areas of damage in order to correctly set material properties and strength, when
modelling the structure to assess its vulnerability are highlighted. In the framework of the
EU-FP7-funded PERPETUATE project (Lagomarsino et al. 2010), many efforts were
made in order to characterise these properties (e.g. Bosiljkov et al. 2011, 2013; Lago-
marsino and Cattari 2013).
On the other hand, the historical structures, monuments or even the old city centres are
often subject to ground instabilities. Several studies on ground instabilities affecting big
monuments or old cities exist. Cigna et al. (2012) combined on-site investigations with the
interpretation of satellite persistent scatterers (PS) to analyse ground instabilities in the
historic town of Agrigento. They correlated, for example, the damage and cracks to St.
Gerlando’s Cathedral and Bishop’s Seminary (that was already subject to many repairing
and reinforcing interventions in the past, e.g. in 1981, 1996 and 1998) with the ground
instabilities. De Michele et al. (2011) used the same methodology to investigate the his-
torical centre of Rhodes. Gigli et al. (2009, 2012) investigated the soil instabilities of two
cultural heritage sites in Malta. One of the two sites (Mdina) is regularly affected by these
instabilities. Bini et al. (2010) used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys to completely
establish the most ancient historical phases of the settlements of the mediaeval castles in
the northern Apennines (Italy). Alcaraz Tarragüel et al. (2012) analysed the possible
impact of landslides and avalanches on cultural heritage assets in Upper Svaneti, Georgia.
They recommended considering also other hazards in future studies, as Upper Svaneti is
part of a zone with high seismic hazard.
Studies quantifying the impact of differential settlements on structure health, via the
construction of fragility curves exist (e.g. Negulescu and Foerster 2010; Fotopoulou and
Pitilakis 2013). More specifically, Loli et al. (2012) studied the response of historic
masonry buildings subjected to tectonically induced ground displacement (emergence of
the fault rupture up to the ground surface) through the analysis of a simple but repre-
sentative soil–foundation–masonry wall system.
However, to the authors’ knowledge even if it is frequently observed, very few articles
dealing with the seismic vulnerability of structures previously affected by ground insta-
bilities at the foundation level are available. In the present article, a structure submitted to
two hazards, namely differential settlement and earthquake, is investigated through
numerical simulations in order to construct fragility curves for damaged structures. In view
of this, a prototype building is first damaged by differential settlements and then submitted
to a set of earthquakes with different intensities.
The consequences of differential settlements on a historical structure are illustrated in
Fig. 1, in which the deformed shape under gravity load and under combined effect of

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gravity load and differential settlement are compared. When submitted to differential
settlements, the deformed shape is no longer symmetrical. Consequently, the structure will
probably be more vulnerable to earthquakes. In fact, this geometrical asymmetry will
probably have a significant effect over the distribution and dissipation of the seismic loads
(EC8 4.2.1.1).

2 Structural model

The structure considered in this study is a fictitious three storeys masonry building rein-
forced by tie-rods. It is 9 m high, and its ground dimensions are 10 9 14 m. Interior walls
in the transversal direction (x-direction in Fig. 2) are 5.2, 2 and 2.8 m long, respectively,
and in the longitudinal direction (y-direction in Fig. 2) are 6.25, 3.5 and 4.25 m long. The
thickness of masonry exterior walls is 60 cm for the two first storeys and 40 cm for the
third one. The interior walls are thinner: 36 cm for the two first storeys and 24 cm for the
third one. Floors are modelled by 5 cm thick elastic membrane element. Tie-rods are
reinforcing the structure at every floor level. Since differential settlements are applied, the
whole soil–foundation–structure system should be modelled. A conventional impedance
function model is here considered (Gazetas 1991). This model enables to take into con-
sideration the frequency-dependent stiffness and damping of the soil. A 3D view of the
building is shown in Fig. 2. The first floor is also depicted in this figure to highlight the
presence of tie-rods (grey–blue lines).
When stressed by static or dynamic loads, masonry structures show complex mac-
roscopic nonlinear responses, characterised by the occurrence of cracks. The induced
damage into the structural elements must thus be considered. The use of refined models
based on the discrete element method (e.g. Lemos 2007) could be a solution for
achieving reliable results, but this solution is computationally expensive and is not
suitable for the purpose of the present work where an important number of dynamic
simulations have to be carried out to derive the fragility functions. The use of macro-
elements simulating the global behaviour of masonry elements represents an interesting
alternative. A finite-element code, Tremuri (Lagomarsino et al. 2012), in which masonry
structures are represented as equivalent frame models, is used. In this software, the piers
and spandrels composing the masonry walls are modelled using macro-elements, which
reproduce the macroscopic response of the masonry panels (Lagomarsino et al. 2013).
This simplified model permits to consider the three main in-plane failure modes of the
masonry walls, including bending-rocking, shear sliding and diagonal cracking. Figure 3
shows a 2D view of the four exterior walls of the structure. In the planar view of the
walls, the red rectangles are masonry elements with pier behaviour, the green ones are
masonry elements with spandrel behaviour and the blue ones are rigid links between the
masonry macro-elements.

2.1 Mechanical properties

The macro-elements model uses ten mechanical parameters presented in Table 1. For the
ultimate drifts, related to the shear and flexural collapse of the masonry element, standard
values currently suggested by EN 1998-3 (2005) were considered.
The model response to a seismic solicitation depends on the damping coefficients
assigned. Those ‘Rayleigh coefficients’ are calculated by Eqs. (1) and (2):

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Fig. 1 Distribution of vertical displacement (in m) under different conditions. Left structure only submitted
to gravity loads; right structure submitted to gravity load and differential settlements (Perpetuate Project)

Fig. 2 3D view of the masonry model (left) and of the first floor (right). The right figure highlights the
presence of Tie-rods (blue lines) and the position of the internal walls

2n
br ¼ ð1Þ
x0 þ xh
x0 xh
ar ¼ 2n ð2Þ
x0 þ xh
in which x0 and xh are the bounds of the frequency range of interest and n is the damping
ratio for these values, here arbitrary set to 2.5 %. A modal analysis is carried out to
determine the frequency range of interest. The importance of each mode is quantified by
the mass involved. Obviously, the main translational modes (fundamental and first higher
modes) along y-direction (along the façade, i.e. the direction along which the ground
motions are applied) must be included in the frequency range of interest. Moreover, as the
building is not totally symmetrical, and as the settlement generates a further asymmetry,
the other important modes of the structure should also be considered (main torsional modes
and main translational modes along x). The frequency band is consequently chosen so that
it contains the six first modes: the two first translational modes along y [modes 1 (4.2 Hz)
and 5 (7.5 Hz)], the two first translational modes along x [modes 2 (3.1 Hz) and 6 (8.2 Hz)]
and the two first torsional modes [modes 3 (4.7 Hz) and 4 (6.9 Hz)]. Finally, the con-
sidered frequency band is slightly increased compared with the frequency range defined by

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Fig. 3 Blueprints of the exterior walls of the numerical model. Wall P1 is the facade of the structure

Table 1 Masonry mechanical parameters

Mechanical parameter Value

E Young modulus 750 MPa

G Shear modulus 250 MPa
q Density 1.800 kg/m3
Fcomp Compressive strength 2.667 MPa
Fsh Shear strength 0.063 MPa
Dsh Ultimate shear drift 0.40 %
Dfl Ultimate bending drift 0.60 %
l Coefficient of friction 0.2
Gc nonlinearity parameter 1
b Stiffness degradation parameter 0.3

Gc and b are determined from a cyclic pushover analysis realised on the structure, composed of progressive
pushes

modes 1–6 (2–10 Hz instead of 3–8 Hz), because the damaged structures are expected to
present lower Eigen frequencies than the healthy ones. This frequency range leads to the
Rayleigh coefficients values ar = 0.524 and br = 6.631 9 10-4.

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3 Choice of strong-motion data for dynamic analysis

To build robust fragility functions, it is important to consider a sufficiently large set of

ground motions, so that the range of interest of intensity measures is sufficiently covered,
and the record to record variability is accurately taken into account.
For this study, a first data set of ground motion time-histories is gathered by selecting
records corresponding to shallow crustal earthquakes (magnitude Mw \ 7.5, focal depth
h \ 30 km) from the European strong-motion database (Ambraseys et al. 2004) and from
the PEER NGA database (Chiou et al. 2008; Next Generation Attenuations Relationships
for Western US project).
A further selection is then carried out to reduce the number of records presenting low
PGA, which are predominant in the data set, but are not very useful for quantifying the
nonlinear dynamic response of the structure. For that purpose, the PGA range 0–12 m/s2 is
first divided into 24 intervals of equal length. Then, the records distribution with PGA can
be controlled by applying limitations over the number of records in each bin (the maximum
number of records in each bin goes from 9 for PGA \1 m/s2 to 14 for PGA \3 m/s2).
Finally, a data set of 152 ground motion time-histories was assembled. Figure 4 shows
the distribution of data set in terms of PGA. Several bins remain partially empty due to
scarcity of the corresponding high-PGA ground motions. Gehl et al. (2013) quantifies the
uncertainty over the fragility functions parameters considering various methods. They
show that with about 150 records and a regression technique, as used in this study, an
uncertainty over the fragility function lower than 10 % is expected. The data set used here
is consequently large enough for deriving accurate fragility functions.

4 Imposed differential settlements

To obtain a differential settlement pattern, it is considered that two external walls are subjected
to a variable settlement on their length while a zero settlement is considered for the other walls
(Fig. 5). The imposed differential settlement presents its maximum magnitude in the corner
formed by the walls P4 and P1 (Fig. 5). It is worth noting that in this framework, it is
considered that a homogeneous settlement does not provoke any damage to the structure and
only differential settlements are taken into account. A similar settlement configuration is
considered for five studied structures with five different settlement maximum magnitudes,
ranging from 5 to 25 cm, with a constant step of 5 cm. Zero displacement condition is
imposed on the walls P2 and P3. Finally, the settlements for the others points of the base of the
structure are calculated by a bilinear interpolation, as illustrated in the Fig. 5. The maximum
magnitude is imposed to the structure in 100 steps of 2.5 mm each. These imposed settlement
magnitudes can be put in perspective with those specified in Eurocode 7 (EN 1997-1, 2005). In
Annex H, the acceptable maximum rotation corresponding with the serviceability limit is said
to be between 1/300 and 1/2,000 rad, which corresponds to differential displacements between
0.5 and 3.3 cm. The rotation corresponding with the ultimate limit is said to be about 1/150 rad
and corresponds to 6.6 cm differential settlements.

5 Combined static (imposed settlements) and dynamic (time-histories) analyses

The main idea of the study is to estimate the seismic vulnerability of buildings already
damaged by differential settlements, which is a quite frequent situation for historical

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Fig. 4 Distribution of the number of earthquakes with respect to the peak ground acceleration values (PGA)
in the 152 time-histories records data set

Fig. 5 3D view of the structure (left) and layout of the imposed settlements at the foundation level (right)

monuments. In fact, by neglecting the effects of the differential settlement, the fragility
curves obtained for undamaged structures will underestimate the structure’s vulnerability.
Consequently, the aim of this study was to provide fragility curves adapted with these
situations.
In a first step, the structure is submitted to differential settlements. As an example, the
damage initiation and growth in the wall P4 for a maximum settlement magnitude of 25 cm
in the corner of the buildings are represented in the Fig. 6 for the steps 0, 40, 80 and 100.
The differential settlement is linearly increased at each step: As a consequence, settlements
of maximum amplitude 0 cm (gravity loads only), 10, 20 and 25 are imposed at the steps 0,
40, 80 and 100, represented Fig. 6.
After applying the dead loads, most of the structural elements are undamaged. Nev-
ertheless, two of the bottom panels are unexpectedly showing minor damage. This is

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probably due to limitations of the over-simple soil-structure model. In step 80 (20 cm

differential settlements), many spandrel elements, in the first and second storeys, present
bending failure. Moreover, many of the spandrel elements of the third storey present shear
failure, and most of the pier elements present flexural damage. In the next steps, the
damage layout remains similar, with only a few exceptions. Nevertheless, the damage in
the elements keeps probably increasing: In fact, elements differently damaged can be
considered by the code in the same damage state (e.g. flexural damage); this is a limitation
of Tremuri post-processing capabilities. Once the building is affected by the differential
settlements, dynamic analyses are performed.

6 Discussions: seismic vulnerability curves taking into consideration damage

from differential settlements

Fragility functions describe the probability of exceeding a certain limit states given a level
of ground shaking. In our case, the level of shaking is defined by the peak ground
acceleration (PGA). The fragility functions are calculated, successively, for the undamaged
structure (without differential settlements) and for the structure already damaged by dif-
ferential settlements ranging from 5 to 25 cm in the corner of the structure. For obtaining
these curves, the same set of ground motion records has been used, so that the influence of
the imposed settlements could be precisely assessed. It is assumed that the fragility curves
can be constructed in the form of two-parameter lognormal distribution functions (median
and log-standard deviation) using the equation:
  
1 IM
Pf ðds  dsi jSÞ ¼ U  ln ð3Þ
btot IMmi
where Pf() is the probability of exceeding a particular damage state, ds, for a given seismic
intensity level defined by PGA, U is the standard cumulative probability function, IMmi is
the median threshold value of the earthquake intensity measure, required to cause the ith
damage state, and btot is the lognormal standard deviation.
A regression technique is considered for obtaining the fragility functions parameters.
The standard procedure is to linearly correlate the logarithm of the intensity measure (here
the PGA) with the logarithm of the engineering demand parameter (EDP), which is usually
the maximum inter-storey drift (ISDR). This procedure works perfectly for the intact
structure (Fig. 7, left side), but should be adapted for previously damaged structures, since
the cloud of points is affected by the drift consecutive of the initial ground settlements
solicitation (Fig. 7, right side).
In the adapted procedure, following Réveillère et al. (2012), log(ISDR–ISDR0) is
considered instead of log(ISDR) when correlating the data with log(PGA), ISDR0 being the
ISDR measured after the static loading. Because of the correction, the thresholds of the
damage limits states should also be corrected by subtracting them ISDR0.
The thresholds of the damage limits states were determined on the basis of the pushover
curve according to the relations proposed by the RISK-UE project (Milutinovic and
Trendafiloski 2003). These relations provide a correlation between the yield dy and ulti-
mate du displacement in the pushover curve and the EMS-98 (Grunthal 1998) damage
scale. Building drift ratios at the threshold of damage states considered in this study are
provided in the Table 2.

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Fig. 6 Damage initiation and growth in the wall P4 during the progressive increase of the differential
settlements, up to a maximum amplitude of 25 cm. A scaling factor equal to 4 is used in the figures

Fig. 7 Correlation between the drift and the PGA values. The circles are the (log(PGA), log(ISDR))
couples resulting from the 152 dynamic analyses, the solid line is the fitted regression curve and the dotted
lines are the thresholds of the five damage limits states. The left figure is based on the intact structure,
whereas the figure on the right concerns the structure previously damaged by a ground settlement of 25 cm
maximum amplitude

The fragility curves obtained for the intact structure and for the structures previously
damaged by settlements of 10 and 25 cm are presented in Fig. 8: At first glance, the curves
are relatively similar. Nevertheless, we can observe that the curves corresponding to pre-
damaged structures are right shifted compared to the curves of the intact building. It means
that as expected pre-damaged structures are more vulnerable to further solicitations.
The parameters of all computed fragility functions are gathered in Table 3. These
results confirm what has been already observed in Fig. 8: The median of the curves are
progressively decreasing with the increased magnitude of the differential displacement. For
instance, the median of the damage state 1 curve is decreased by 50 % when a differential
displacement of 25 cm is previously imposed to the structure. It is also interesting to note
the increase in the standard deviation of the curves with the amplitude of the imposed
differential settlements: The pre-damaged structures are showing responses more strongly
nonlinear, subject to larger variability.
Figure 9 enables the comparison of the fragility functions of all initial structures, for
damage states 1 and 5. We can observe that the vulnerability of the structures does not

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Table 2 Thresholds of the

Damage limits state (LS) Drift (%)
damage limits states
Slight (LS1) 0.0031
Moderate (LS2) 0.0040
Extensive (LS3) 0.0066
Very heavy (LS4) 0.0119
Collapse (LS5) 0.0207

Fig. 8 Fragility curves for the intact structure (left figure) and for a structure damaged by 10 and 25 cm
settlement, respectively (figures, respectively, in the middle and on the right). The curves corresponding to
the damage states 1–5 are displayed, respectively, in green, blue, magenta, red and black

Table 3 Parameters of the fragility functions: l is the median of the curve (in m/s2) and b the standard
deviation
Damage State Intact 5-cm Diff. 10-cm Diff. 15-cm Diff. 20-cm Diff. 25-cm Diff.
building disp. disp. disp. disp. disp.

l b l b l b l b l b l b

1 1.76 0.56 1.36 0.56 1.42 0.64 1.28 0.68 1.23 0.67 1.16 0.67
2 1.98 0.56 1.70 0.56 1.62 0.64 1.49 0.68 1.42 0.67 1.35 0.67
3 2.53 0.56 2.41 0.56 2.09 0.64 1.98 0.68 1.89 0.67 1.80 0.67
4 3.34 0.56 3.33 0.56 2.74 0.64 2.72 0.68 2.57 0.67 2.48 0.67
5 4.33 0.56 4.39 0.56 3.51 0.64 3.64 0.68 3.42 0.67 3.33 0.67

linearly increase with the settlement magnitude. In fact, the largest increase of the vul-
nerability is observed, when increasing the settlement from 5 to 10 cm. On the other hand,
the curves for the intact building and corresponding to a 5-cm settlement are almost
identical for example.
It is worth noticing that the structure is well withstanding the differential settlements,
the difference between the curves being not as significant as we could expect. The resil-
ience of masonry structures to differential settlement is known to be important, particularly
because of larger dissipation areas compared with other structures like for example rein-
forced concrete ones. Nevertheless, we can observe that the probability of exceeding a
given damage state increases with the settlement magnitude. Table 4 gives the probability

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Fig. 9 Comparison of the fragility functions obtained for the damage states 1 (dotted lines) and 5 (solid
lines). The magnitude of the settlement is represented by the colour of the curve

Table 4 Probability of exceeding limit states 1 and 5 for three values of PGA: 1.5, 2 and 3 m/s2 and for all
initial conditions: without settlement and with settlements in range 5–25 cm
Damage state Initial condition PGA (m/s2)

1.5 2 3

LS1 Intact building (%) 38.8 59.1 83.1

5-cm Diff. disp. (%) 56.9 75.5 92.2
10-cm Diff. disp. (%) 53.4 70.3 87.8
15-cm Diff. disp. (%) 59.1 74.4 89.6
20-cm Diff. disp. (%) 61.6 76.5 90.8
25-cm Diff. disp. (%) 64.9 79.1 92.1
LS5 Intact building (%) 2.9 8.3 25.5
5-cm Diff. disp. (%) 2.7 7.9 24.7
10-cm Diff. disp. (%) 9.3 19.1 40.4
15-cm Diff. disp. (%) 9.5 18.7 38.7
20-cm Diff. disp. (%) 11.0 21.2 42.2
25-cm Diff. disp. (%) 11.8 22.5 43.9

of exceeding limit states 1 and 5 for three typical values of PGA: 1.5, 2 and 3 m/s2. The
probabilities of exceeding both limit states are increased, when considering the differential
settlements. The probability of exceeding LS1 is mainly increased when we begin to
impose settlements (significant difference between the intact structure and the structure
damaged by 5 cm settlement). On the other hand, the probability of exceeding LS5
increases mostly when the settlement passes from 5 to 10 cm.

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Fig. 10 Probability of exceeding LS1 (left) and LS5 (right), function of the amplitude of differential
settlement and of the PGA

Considering the initial differential settlement as a second hazard, the obtained results
can be recast in the form of fragility surfaces (Seyedi et al. 2010) where the probability of
exceeding a damage level is calculated as a function of two hazard intensity, namely PGA
and settlement amplitude. In Fig. 10, surface fragilities for LS1 and LS5 are displayed as a
function of the two intensity parameters PGA (in m/s2) and settlements (in cm). Once
again, we can observe that the increase of the vulnerability of the structures with the
differential settlements is not linear, and some threshold effects can be seen.

7 Conclusions

Many historical monuments have undergone ground instabilities during their life and
present quite often some cracks, small damage or tilt. This study takes into consideration
the effect of this kind of damage (in this case induced by differential settlements) on the
vulnerability of the structure towards future seismic events. Valuable qualitative and
quantitative information based on numerical modelling are provided, which could help to
understand the combined influence of two hazards (settlements and earthquakes) on the
vulnerability of a given structure. The studied structure is initially damaged by differential
settlements, whose amplitude is ranging from 5 to 25 cm (1/280–1/56 rad). Then, the
structure is submitted to earthquakes via nonlinear time-history analyses. The effect of the
initial settlement on the damage probability is investigated in this later stage, by the study
of the obtained fragility functions. A modified regression approach, taking into account the
residual drift due to the previous settlement loading is considered for obtaining the fragility
functions parameters.
The effect of differential settlements is clearly identified, even for smaller amplitudes
(lower than 10 cm). The resilience of the structure against differential displacements is
important: This is in accordance with the fact that masonry structures, which present
extended areas able to dissipate strain increases, can usually withstand important
settlements.
The quantitative results of this study should be carefully considered, being obtained for
a very specific structure with a model not able to recreate all the realistic failures of the
masonry structures, and with a very specific shape of the differential settlements. In further
works, several improvement of the exposed method can be considered: For instance, the
use of different patterns of differential settlements, different structures or numerical models
could be investigated.

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Acknowledgments The results presented in this paper have been achieved within the project PERPET-
UATE (www.perpetuate.eu), co-funded by the European Commission within the Seventh Framework
Programme (FP7/2007-2013), under Grant agreement no 244229. The authors wish to thank Dr Serena
Cattari and Prof. Sergio Lagomarsino (University of Genoa) for providing the numerical model of the test
structure, Dr John Douglas from BRGM for his help in the selection of the ground motion records used in
the present study and Prof. Kyriazis Pitilakis (Technical University of Thessaloniki) for providing the plans
that have been used by our team for illustrating Fig. 1. The authors are also very grateful to Dr Ken Tokeshi
and an anonymous reviewer for their detailed reviews of a previous version of this article, which signifi-
cantly improved the study.

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