Seismic behavior of a four-legged masonry minaret

Abstract

The four-legged Minaret of Sheikh Mutahhar Mosque has been constructed in the early 16th century during the Aq Qoyunlu Period in Diyarbakır, Turkey, which is located in the second most hazardous zone of the Turkish Seismic Zones Map. This is a special structure, because the minaret body has been placed on four cylindrical stone columns. Therefore, this minaret is seemingly vulnerable though it has survived for five centuries. We use the square cross sectioned minaret as a possible large-scale seismograph to examine the possible limits of ground motion that must have affected it without causing its collapse. In order to investigate the likely seismic performance and strength of the four-legged minaret, a model, which is very close to real structure, was generated with explicit dynamic code LS-DYNA. The developed model takes into account the material nonlinearities and the interface friction and contact behavior between the masonry units. It was displayed that the amplitude of the ground motion in Diyarbakır could not be 0.15g.