Structural analysis of historical structures: A case study on the Diyarbakır city walls

Historical structures are structures that contain sociological economic cultural elements of the geography in which they are transferred from the past to the present. Deformations in historical buildings over time constitute a major obstacle to maintaining the stability of buildings. Causes such as climate conditions, natural disasters, human destruction, faulty repairs may lead to the deterioration of the authenticity or even destruction of the buildings. Today, there are many studies on the preservation of historical structures, repair of the deformations occurred and transfer them to future safely. In these studies, it's aimed to the experimental and numerical analysis of the structures were conducted to examine the dynamic behavior of the structures and to strengthen their weaknesses. However, the analysis of historical building behavior remains one of the major challenges in this field. Most of the historical buildings were built in the form of masonry construction. The use of materials with different mechanical properties in these structures makes it difficult to analyze the structure numerically. In this study, Yedikardeş bastion (bastion 41) one of the largest bastions of Diyarbakir Walls, the most important cultural heritage of Diyarbakir, was examined. The wall of the bastion, which built as masonry, was built by placing mortar and rubble basalts between the outer and inner walls and between these walls. The bastion is modelled in three different ways by finite element method. Static and dynamic analyses of construction models were performed. Seismic performances of models were compared as a result of spectral analysis. Accordingly, performance level of the structure was evaluated as limited damage. In the following studies, it is aimed to use the micro modeling method where the stone and mortar are modeled separately.