Research on the dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of historical brick-vault hall: a case study of the brick-vault hall of Yongzuo temple

The historical brick-vault hall is a very special type of architectural heritage, which adopts masonry walls, masonry arches, and masonry domes to bear loads and actions, and possesses significant historical, artistic, and scientific values. To clarify the dynamic characteristics and seismic performance of historical brick-vault halls, this study selects the Yongzuo Temple’s hall with a brick vault as a case study considering its typicality. ANSYS finite element software is applied to conduct numerical analysis, investigating the structural dynamic characteristics and seismic time-history responses to evaluate the structural safety of the Yongzuo Temple’s hall with a brick vault under seismic actions. The natural frequency, modal shapes, displacement responses, and stress responses of the structure under earthquakes of magnitude 8 are obtained. The analysis results show that the Yongzuo Temple’s hall with a brick vault has relatively large structural torsional stiffness, which is conducive to earthquake resistance. Under frequent earthquakes of magnitude 8, rare earthquakes, and design basis earthquake, the vertex displacement and inter-story displacement angle of the structure consistently meet current code provisions, and the third principal stress response of the hall is always less than the compressive strength of the material, indicating no collapse risk. Under an 8-degree frequent earthquake, the first principal stress response of the structure is less than the tensile strength of the material, so the structure does not suffer tensile cracking. However, under an 8-degree design basis earthquake or rare earthquake, the tensile stress at certain locations of the structure exceeds the tensile strength of the material, indicating a potential cracking risk. Finally, based on the analysis results of its dynamic characteristics and seismic performance, some suggestions for the seismic reinforcement of the Yongzuo Temple’s hall with a brick vault are proposed.