Seismic vulnerability of roof systems combining URM gable walls and timber diaphragms

Summary Typical low‐rise masonry buildings consist of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls covered with various timber roof configurations generally supported or finished by masonry gables. Post‐earthquake observations and experimental outcomes highlighted the large vulnerability of the URM gables to the development of overturning mechanisms, both because of the inertial out‐of‐plane excitation and the in‐plane timber diaphragm deformability. This paper presents the static and dynamic experimental seismic performance of three full‐scale roofs tested via quasi‐static cyclic and shake table tests. Two of them were tested as part of a whole full scale one‐storey and two‐storey building. A single‐degree‐of‐freedom (SDOF) numerical model is calibrated against experimental data and proposed for the analysis of this roof typology's dynamic behaviour. Several sets of analyses were conducted to assess the vulnerability of these structural components and to study the effect of the whole building's characteristics (eg, number of storeys and structural stiffness and strength) on the seismic performance of this roof typology.