Vibration control systems: a review of their application to historical unreinforced masonry buildings

Abstract

Unreinforced masonry buildings generally present poor seismic performance given the low shear and tensile strength of the material. In the last decades, researchers have been exploring alternatives to overcome the limitations of traditional strengthening techniques, obtaining promising results in the application of vibration control systems, i.e., energy dissipation devices and base isolation that can add damping capacity to the structure or decouple it from the ground. This review focuses on the implementation of passive vibration control systems in historical buildings, namely in unreinforced masonry structures. The application of vibration control systems to masonry structures and the design of energy dissipation systems that satisfy the conservation criteria remain open issues.