Performance of Gaskar Historical Minaret against Natural Wind and Earthquake Hazards

Historical brick minarets are the main elements of Iranian architecture and exist throughout the country in diverse dimensions and heights. In this research, Gaskar brick minaret with a height of 16.12 meters has been modeled by the finite element software by APDL programming and precise discretization, in order to achieve an accurate damage pattern. Then the demand for the both wind and earthquake loads is determined according to the national building codes and applied to the minaret structure. Macro-modeling has been utilized to model the masonry materials domain. Nonlinear properties are also assigned to masonry materials. The results presented that the minaret is safe against both of the design wind load (90km/h) and the fastest recorded wind in the world (205km/h). If up to 12 times the design wind load is applied to the windshield surface of the minaret, the nonlinear behavior of the building will begin. The minaret is also vulnerable to earthquakes and minor damage has occurred at the bottom of the minaret, indicating that the minaret is at risk of collapse.