EARTHQUAKE ANALYSIS AND STRENGHTHENING OF THE HISTORICAL MEHMET AGA MOSQUE IN ISTANBUL

摘要

Istanbul is one of the oldest cities in the world and it was the capital of several empires. The city has many historical buildings from various civilizations, especially from the Ottoman Empire, including mosques, mausoleums, bathhouses, bridges and aqueducts. On the other hand Istanbul is very close to a major earthquake source of Turkey, which is called the North Anatolian Fault Line. There are several estimations stating that a major earthquake is likely to strike Istanbul in a short time. Several works to mitigate the effect of a probable earthquake have been done by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and one of them is related to the seismic evaluation of the historical buildings in the city. The present study was carried out within this work and dealt with the seismic evaluation of a historical mosque in Istanbul. Mehmet Aga Mosque was constructed in 1585 by Architect Davud Aga. The building was subjected to various strong ground motions several times without having a major damage. For the detailed investigation of the building existing damages were determined by in situ survey. A 3-D model of the building was prepared and structural and seismic analyses were performed for various characteristic values of the material and seismic excitations. The paper presents a summary of the results of the structural response analyses of the building, including its response under gravity and seismic loads. The stress concentrations in the walls and the crack patterns were compared with the existing damages for interpretation of the results and various strengthening methods for increasing the structural and seismic performance of the building were discussed.