DEGRADATIONOF HISTORICAL TURKISH BATHSTRUCTURES

RELATIONWITH HISTORICAL PREVENTIVE CONSTRUCTION

TECHNIQUES AGAINST SEISMIC FORCES

Kerimcan Apak

PolitecnicoDiMilano,DipartimentoDiArchitetturaePianificazione,Conservazionedeibeniarchitettonici

kerimcan.apak@mail.polimi.it

ABSTRACT

Stone was used as structural material in historical buildings. The structural failures of stone material cause

failures on structural elements such as lintels, walls, arches, vaults and domes. Degradation of stone walls

can be associated with many factors that include the type of stone as well as the forces that applied to the

material and used materials for combining the stones together. Mortar and ties which were made up of brick

and timber were used in traditional Turkish bath structures for preventing them for the horizontal forces.

Horizontal forces were especially seismic forces were the generally main reasons for the degradation of

masonrywallstructures.

Structural degradation of the historical masonry walls of the baths were occur mainly lack of the timber tie

beams inside of the walls. In long time period timber tie beams were decayed and release the masonry

structure alone. The inner tension of the masonry wall was removed and the structure had been become weak

forthehorizontalforcesespeciallyseismicforces.

Inthisstudy,thehistoricalTurkishbathstructuresinOttomanperiodfrom15th centurywerechosenfromthe

two different seismic areas for analyzing degradation of the structure relation with preventive construction

techniques for the seismic forces like timber ties and linear brick pattern layouts. These case studies were

ruins and some parts of the structures were collapsed. The collapsed mechanisms of the structures were

analyzedandthereasonswerelisted.

The methodology of this research was started with seismic point of view of the settlements of the historical

baths. Secondly general structural qualifications of the baths were analyzed for to put forward the behavior

of the structure for the horizontal forces. Thirdly the construction details of the masonry walls were analyzed

and the decayed of timber and brick ties were determined for understanding the mechanisms of the collapse

partsofthebathstructures.

Finally outputs of this research were; degradation of the bath structure with the help of collapse mechanisms

inrelationwiththedecayofthestructuralbindingelementsliketimbertiesandlinearbrickpatternslayouts.

KeyWords: Degradation,wall,structures,collapse,mechanism