Seismic safety assessment of mixed timber-masonry historical building: an example in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Hotel El Comercio is a typical colonial era house in Peru. This category of buildings exhibits specific architectural details and construction techniques, including adobe walls and mixed timber-earth systems (quincha). This paper presents the seismic assessment of the building in its current condition, proposing adequate strategies for modeling this type of buildings through finite element models, which remains a true challenge in case of seismic loading. Different sets of nonlinear properties are adopted and sensitivity analyses, involving different mechanical characteristics and load conditions, are performed in order to understand how they affect the structural response.