Damage Analysis on a Chinese Ancient Building by Wenchuan Earthquake

In order to study damage of ancient buildings by the Wenchuan earthquake in China on 12^th ,may 2008, we took Da-Xiong Palace which is 189 km far away from the epicenter as an example for analysis. Columns of the palace inclined very much by the earthquake. We used time-history method to simulate response of the palace to find out the main reason for the large inclination. According to characters of tenon-mortise joints we built simulation model of the structure.Then we amplituded Wenchuan earthquake waves according to damage intensity of the palace. By dynamic analysis we studied responses of displacement and stress of the structure and obtained effective data. Results show that the main reason for incline of columns of the structure is that tenon pulled from mortise of some tenon-mortise joints between tie beams and columns, but the structure will not be destroyed for strength failure under seismic forces.