Ingenieurwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen an der Hagia Sophia in Istanbul [Teil 2]

Engineering Studies on the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul — Part 2: On the Structural Behavior.

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which is one of the most important and remarkable buildings of the past 1500 years from the point of view of architectural and cultural history as well as from a civil-engineering perspective, has been the object of extensive research — first, regarding its structure and then, its structural behavior as the subject of the DFG Project "Engineering Studies of the Main Dome and Main Pillars of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul".
The optimized use of non-destructive, geo-physical methods of examination allowed, for the first time, making comprehensive statements on the existing structure and the internal condition of the structural parts as they have developed over the centuries and through several partial collapses to this day. A report on this can be found in the first part of my article.
This second part focuses on the structural behavior of the Hagia Sophia. Departing from fundamental deliberations on load flow in pendentive domes, the importance of the new findings about the structural characteristics for structural behavior is evaluated, compared to the bases for calculation used before, and used in the context of studies on load flow and structural behavior under a structural load. With regard to the issue of earthquake risk, an outlook is provided on a follow-up project that will focus on a dynamic analysis of the Hagia Sophia, based on these research results.