8

th
International Congress on Advances in Civil Engineering, 15-17 September 2008
Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus

31







Structural Modeling and Seismic Performance
Analysis of Mehmet Aga Mosque in Istanbul



Y. H. Gedik
1
, Z. Celep
2


1
Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
2
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey



Abstract

Mehmet Aga Mosque was constructed in 1585 and it has been used ever
since. Although by now it has been subjected to several strong ground
motions, there is no damage of great scale. External walls of the historical
building consist of one stone row alternated with three brick rows. The main
dome is made of brick. The front side of the building has piers with stone
heads on them and the minaret is made of cut stones. Recently, a large scale
investigation has been started by the Great Municipality of Istanbul for the
historical buildings in the historical peninsula, i.e., in Fatih and Eminn.
The building is investigated thoroughly; cracks and damages are determined.
A three dimensional model of the building is prepared and the structural
system of the building is analyzed under the gravity and the seismic loads.
The paper presents a summary of these results including the static and
dynamic responses of the building and the variations of the stresses in the
structural elements of the building. The stresses concentrations in the walls
obtained in the analysis and the existing crack patterns observed in the
inspection are compared to find a possible agreement between them.
Considering the analysis results, various strengthening methods for
increasing the structural performance of the building under the gravity and
the seismic loads are discussed as well.

Keywords: historical building, structural modeling, seismic performance,
strengthening.



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1 Introduction

Istanbul is one of the oldest cities in the world and it was the capital of several
empires. Because of that, the city has a large number of historical buildings from
the various civilizations, especially from the Ottoman Empire, including
mosques, bathhouses, bridges and aqueducts. Istanbul is located close to a major
earthquake source of Turkey which called the North Anatolian Fault Line. There
are several estimations showing that a major earthquake will probably strike
Istanbul in a short time. Mehmet Aga Mosque investigated in this paper is located
in Fatih, Istanbul. Darussaade Agas Mehmet Aga made the mosque construct in
1585 to Architect Davut Aga (Figure 1) and so far the mosque has beeen
subjected to several strong ground motions, including the earthquake of 1766,
1894 and 1999. The Mosque was repaired in 1743 and restored in 1982 (Figure
2). Due to the earlier maintenance and repair works, most of cracks and damages
could not be seen; only the recent cracks and damages could be determined
during inspection. In the front part of the mosque, deterioration on the cut stones
and cracks on the edges of some windows are observed. There are also slight
radial cracks on one of the semi-domes as a result of the environmental effects.
Presently cracks and damages do not threaten the structural integrity of the
building. However, in order to prevent further damages, some minor
structural repair and strengthening intervention are recommended.


2 Architectural Description of the Building

Mehmet Aga Mosque being on the flat area has a square shaped main part called
Harim. This part is covered with the main dome having a height of 17.3m and a
diameter of 11.0m and with five semi-domes and tromps. The pendentives are
located in between them. The arches which bear the main dome are supported by
the four piers and by the corners of the four body walls. The building has a
wooden interior balcony having a height of 2.8m. The external walls of the
historical building consist of one stone row alternated with three brick rows and it
has an average thickness of 1.3m. The main dome is made of brick. The back
portion of the mosque consists of five parts covered by five small domes which
are supported by the six marble piers having stone heads through the arches
which have iron tie bars. The mosque has a minaret of 29m height. The minaret is
made of cut stones. Although most of them were changed, there are still some
nice ceramics and handicrafts on the walls (Okuoglu, 1994).


3 Observed Damages

The mosque has lived the earthquakes of 1766, 1894 and 1999 and was repaired
in 1743 and restored in 1982. Only some of the repair and restoration traces can
be seen at the present time. The mosque is still in service and the maintenance
works is being done regularly. Consequently damages which occurred due to the
past earthquakes can not be observed completely. Furthermore, no damage
originating from the soil condition is observed. The observed damages can be
Y. H. Gedik, Z. Celep

33
stated as follows: Some cut stones were deteriorated in the front part of the
building and few cracks are observed in one of the tromps (Figure 3). Slight
radial cracks on one of the semi-domes are detected. Most of the windows have
cracks on their edges. Some of iron ties were twisted on their connection points
(Figure 4). Generally cracks and damages observed originate from the
environmental conditions.


Figure 1. Mehmet Aga Mosque


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Figure 2. Sections and elevations of Mehmet Aga Mosque



Figure 3. View from Mehmet Aga Mosque


4 Soil Conditions

The mosque is located in the higher part of the region; the local ground surface
does not have any slope. The foundation of the building seems to be on Gungoren
formation which is a soil of firm-stiff consistency having high plasticity clay. The
soil has partially gravel and sand strata as well. Geotechnical investigation has
been carried out for the area in question, by digging exploratory pits. As a results
Y. H. Gedik, Z. Celep

35
of these investigations, it is assumed that the soil has a special gravity of =
18kN/m
3
, a cohesion of c = 60kN/m
2
and a shear friction angle of = 10. No
ground water is detected in the soil examination. In general the SPT values of
Gungoren formation lay in between 20~40. Although the building is located in
the second highest seismic risk according to the seismic risk map, in the analysis
the building is assumed to be located in the highest risk zone having an effective
ground acceleration factor of 0.4.


5 Numerical Analysis

5.1 Material Properties

The building is composed of cut stone, brick and mortar in between them. The
main structural elements of the building are walls and domes which are made of
stone masonry, brick masonry or a mixture of the brick and stone masonry. To
obtain the global response of the building, it is assumed to be made of a
equivalent single material having a modulus of elasticity of E = 2GPa, a unit
weight of = 20kN/m
3
and a Poisson ratio of = 0.2 a foundation stiffness of K
= 20MN/m
3
. In the numerical analysis the building is assumed to be fixed at its
support. However, also elastic springs are used at the base connection in order to
include the soil effect partially. Since the modulus of elasticity and the foundation
stiffness are difficult to determine, the analysis is carried out for the various
values of these parameters (Gler et al., 2004).

5.2 Structural Model

Since the building has a very complex geometry, its three dimensional finite
element model is prepared with some idealizations. The model is developed by
using the architectural plans and elevations of the building drawn in AutoCAD
format. The finite element model of the building consists of masonry external
walls, a main dome and small domes, tromps and piers. The piers, iron ties and
arches are defined as frame elements. External thick masonry walls are defined as
three dimensional solids elements having two layers, whereas the domes, the
arches and the pendentives are defined using two dimensional shell elements.
Generally, it is not easy to find reasonable number of finite elements to capture
response of the system with acceptable accuracy. In the present case, in total 201
frame elements, 1530 area elements and 2418 solid elements are used for the
structural model. Actually the external masonry walls consist of three major
materials; stone, brick and mortar. However because of the complexity of the
materials and lack of the data, the building is assumed to be made of a single
material. Various minor simplifications are made in the modeling to keep the
number of the finite elements minimum to avoid complexity in the geometry of
the building. However, reasonable attention is given to capture the behavior of
the building and to identify its structural response in an acceptable level of
accuracy. Due to relatively brittle behavior of masonry, elastic finite element
analysis is adopted to gain an insight to its structural behavior under the vertical
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gravity load and the lateral seismic loads. The analysis is carried out by using the
SAP 2000 software.

The static and dynamic structural analysis is carried out. First analysis is
carried out to determine the stresses of the system subjected to the gravity
load. In the second analysis the free vibration periods and the mode shapes
are obtained. The stresses due to earthquake load are obtained and combined
with those of the gravity loads.

Table 2. Free vibration modal periods (s)

Mode 1 2 3 4 5
T (fixed support, E = 2GPa) 0.229 0.221 0.174 0.147 0.140
T (K = 20 MN/m
3
, E = 1GPa ) 0.446 0.418 0.254 0.244 0.213
T (K = 20 MN/m
3
, E = 2GPa ) 0.378 0.348 0.200 0.189 0.182
T (K = 20 MN/m
3
, E = 3GPa ) 0.354 0.323 0.197 0.159 0.153
T (K = 10 MN/m
3
, E = 2GPa ) 0.480 0.437 0.277 0.193 0.185
T (K = 30 MN/m
3
, E = 2GPa ) 0.339 0.315 0.187 0.180 0.167

Table 2 shows the free vibration frequencies of the building for various
values of the modulus elasticity and the foundation stiffness. As expected, the
period increases as the material and the foundation get softer. However, the
effect of the foundation stiffness is much more pronounced than the modulus
of elasticity.


Figure 4. Vertical normal stresses in the walls of the building

Figure 4 shows the vertical normal stresses of the building under the gravity load.
Inspection of the figure reveals that the vertical stresses increase almost linearly
along the vertical direction, whereas various stress concentration can be seen at
the corners of the opening which may explain why various types of local
damages exist at these places. The vertical stresses due to the gravity loads do not
depend on the modulus of elasticity and the foundation stiffness notably. As
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37
expected, the effect of the foundation stiffness can appear to be significant, when
the foundation stiffness is not uniformly distributed on the soil surface.

Figure 5 shows the first two-mode shapes each being in the two orthogonal
directions. As seen, they have almost the same periods which shows that the
rigidity and the participating mass in these two directions are very close to
each other. On the other hand, the higher modes shapes are too complex to
make the same simple comments.

Figure 6 shows the vertical and the horizontal normal stresses of the building by
assuming a response spectral analysis as it is defined in the Turkish Seismic Code
in the two principal directions with a building importance factor I = 1.2 and a
earthquake load reduction factor R
a
= 2. The two spectral curves representing the
design (50 year/10%) and the maximum earthquakes (50 year/2%) are considered
by including the vertical gravity load. The analysis results show an increase in
stresses up to 50%. As expected, the tensile stresses increase, when the
earthquake loading is taken into account especially in the corners of the openings.
The locations of the tensile stresses are important due to the low tensile strength
of the masonry comparing its compressive strength.



Figure 5. First two vibration mode shapes of the building

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Figure 6. Vertical normal stresses assuming that the building under thegravity
load and the maximum earthquake


Figure 7. Hub stresses in the main dome of the building without and with the
tensile circular ring

One of the main strengthening interventions in the dooms is addition of a
relatively rigid circular ring externally to the support of the main dome and to
limit the hub tensile stresses. Figure 7 shows the hub stresses in the main dome of
the building without and with the tensile circular ring. Comparison of the figures
clearly shows a very effective decrease in the tensile stresses.


6. Conclusion

Since historical buildings generally have complex geometrical shapes of various
degrees, it is difficult to develop a model reflecting all of the complexity.
However, a global behavior of the buildings can be obtained by using a
reasonable number of finite elements. Generally, the finite element analysis
representing purely elastic response of the structure yields the stress singularities
in the geometrical corners and the discontinuities which is not easy to interpret.
The variations of stresses are insensitive to the modulus of elasticity as well as to
the foundation stiffness provided that it is uniformly distributed below the
foundation in general. The non-linear behavior of the masonry comes into being
due stress concentration at the discontinuities of the system which causes
cracking of the masonry, when tensile stress reaches the strength of the material.
The increase of the capacity beyond the elastic response comes into being due to
stress redistribution beyond the elastic limit of the material. However, the overall
behavior of the building with a certain accuracy can be obtained as a result of
elastic analysis. Furthermore, it is worth to note that one of the main
strengthening interventions of the dome type structures is addition of a tensile
ring to limit the horizontal displacement and the tensile hub stresses. Another
most common strengthening intervention is the application of FRP strips. These
strips are applied at the support of the domes to bear to rotationally symmetric
support reaction, to provide integrity and to prevent opening of the domes at the
support level. These strips are very effective, when they are applied to circular
rotationally symmetric surfaces. However, the same procedure can not be
recommended for the vaults due to their rectangular configuration. Furthermore,
repair and strengthening of the external walls, domes and vaults are
Y. H. Gedik, Z. Celep

39
recommended by replacing the missing and the damaged masonry units and
repairing cracks and the damages by using specially designed mortar to secure
integrity of the structural elements.


References

Turkish Seismic Code (2007), Ministry of Reconstruction and Resettlement,
Turkish Government, Ankara.
SAP2000, Structural Analysis Program (2005), Computers and Structures, Inc.,
2005.
Gler, K., Salamer, A., Celep, Z., Pakdamar, F. (2004), Structural and
earthquake response analysis of The Little Hagia Sophia Mosque, 13
th
World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Okuoglu, T. (1994), Dnden Bugne stanbul Ansiklopedisi, Cilt V, Kltr
Bakanl ve Tarih Vakf Ortak Yayn, Istanbul.
Fatih Camileri ve Dier Tarihi Eserler (1991), Diyanet leri Bakanl, Fatih
Mftl, Istanbul.