LAUSR

ABSTRACT Historically, the first groin vaults were built without ribs, but ribs later appeared for various reasons. Some ribs have only an aesthetic role, while others have a clear structural role in stiffening the groin. The stiffening effect on the static behavior is currently of wide interest, as the preservation of architectural heritage has become important. While static behavior has various explanations, the discrete spatial structure of cross vaults allowed for only approximate solutions to dynamic problems, such as seismic load response. In this article, a 3D time-history analysis is carried out with a commercial discrete element code. Following the motion of elastic discrete blocks in the structure allows the continuation of nonlinear effects from the rocking and sliding of the blocks. The analysis only addresses the most presumably dangerous direction of ground acceleration. The time-history analysis uses a synthetic accelerogram; a real accelerogram is scaled in the frequency domain to fit to a standard response spectrum. The influence of the supporting walls is handled approximately by considering them to be an SDoF system, which affects the signal of the support acceleration.