Seismic behavior characterization of a historic construction of clay brick masonry

The earthquakes are one of the major causes of damages to heritage buildings across the world. In relation to the masonry heritage constructions, the occurrence of earthquakes, in a specific way, even considering small magnitudes, can presenting serious damage or provoking the structural collapse. In Brazil, the Sobral downtown keep a large number of heritage buildings in its historic center that is one of the biggest and most important of Brazil. Since 2008, an intense seismic activity has been observed in Sobral region, where at 05/21/2008 an earthquake of 4.2 mb magnitude was registered. Following, aiming to contribute for preservation and safety of Sobral's heritage constructions under seismic actions, this paper presents a seismic behavior characterization of the Nossa Senhora das Dores Church. In this purpose, a 3D model of structure was done and calibrated based on environmental vibration testing. For the seismic analysis, the Ansys® software was used, having as input excitation the accelerograms of the San Juan de los Llanos earthquake, of 4.1 magnitude, occurred in 06/15/2014 in Mexico. The results obtained, allowed to identify the most fragile zones of the Nossa Senhora das Dores Church for the seismic hazard scenario considered