Dynamic Seismic and Wind Response of Masonry Minarets

Historical masonry structures i.e. minarets, towers, mosques or bastions are the heritage of past generations to the future societies as they carry the traces of the past communities. Among these structures, historical masonry minarets are one of the most generally constructed structure that reflects the beauty and magnificence of Islamic culture. Under severe winds and earthquakes, most of them were severely damaged or collapsed. Therefore, it is an inevitable duty for us to conduct and investigate their dynamic behavior under these vital actions of nature. In this study, the dynamic seismic and wind response of a historical minaret of İskenderpaşa Mosque that is selected from the technical literature is investigated by using different methods i.e. wind loading procedures of TS498, CICIND Model Code and Eurocode 1, the design spectrums of CICIND Model Code and Eurocode 8 for different types of soils, the time histories of real ground motions of Düzce and Kocaeli Earthquakes. At the end of the study, top joint displacements and stress distributions are obtained and interpreted. The findings of this study showed that the dynamic behavior of this historical masonry minaret is wind dominant (CICIND Model Code) and tensile and shear stress accumulations at the junction point of transition segment and cylindrical body of the minaret is the main reason for the collapse without showing any ductile behavior.