Effect of Direction of Loading on Seismic Response of Historical Masonry Minarets: The Minaret of Aksaray Zafer Mosque

Abstract

In Islamic culture, minarets, a significant component of religious architecture, are seen in tombs and madrasahs in addition to mosques. Originally created without following a particular architectural style, minarets were often made of wood, stone, and brick. The primary goal of this study is to identify the critical axis of earthquake application. For this reason, the masonry load carrying system minaret of the Zafer Mosque in Aksaray's city center was chosen from the technical literature. The chosen minaret was exposed to acceleration time histories of the recent Turkish earthquakes of 1999 Düzce, 2011 Van, and 2023 Kahramanmaraş, which resulted in several fatalities. The x-axis was set at 0°, and increments of 15° were made up to 180°. Under Van earthquake, the minaret is in the "Controlled Damage" zone; under Düzce earthquake, it is in the "Before Collapse" zone; and under recent Kahramanmaraş earthquake, it is in the beyond "Before Collapse" zone. Additionally, the crucial axis for the cited masonry minaret was identified as either the axis that passes through the exact center of the door (x-axis) or the axis that is exactly perpendicular to the x-axis (y-axis) to be employed in the design phase, depending on the earthquake characteristics.

Keywords

• Masonry minaret
• SAP2000 program
• Earthquake load
• Loading direction
• Critical axis

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