Seismic capacity assessment of Shikhara style temple with and without traditional seismic enhancement

Brick masonry heritage structures have long been understood as highly vulnerable under earthquake excitation. Due to preservation constraints and considerations, modern materials are not allowed in seismic strengthening or post-earthquake reconstruction of heritage structures. Thus, traditional strengthening techniques are mandatory in heritage structures. The present paper reports the outcome of reconstruction initiative in a Shikhara style temple located in a world heritage site using timber element based seismic enhancement. Using numerical modeling, capacity assessment with and without timber elements is performed. For capacity assessment pushover analysis is performed for both as built and reconstructed models. The results show considerable increase in seismic capacity even with traditional improvement techniques, i.e. vertical timber elements. 18.05% increase in seismic capacity is found when vertical timber elements are used. Also, about 8% increase in the fundamental vibration frequency is observed after strengthening. The paper reports the details of geometrical features, reconstruction aspects, and numerical analysis results comprising modal analysis and capacity assessment.