1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Paper length

Structural assessment of the existing structures
becomes every day present task for the structural
engineers especially in dense populated urban areas
and older cities. The existing buildings in Bosnia
and Herzegovina are traditionally built as masonry
buildings, which includes most of historical
buildings. Depending on the historical period and
usual art of the building in some specific regions,
brick or stone masonry was applied. In spite of the
fact that reinforced concrete structures prevail in the
new erected buildings, masonry structures are still
built, even with application of the new building
materials. The results of structural analysis of
existing masonry structures lead very often to the
conclusions that some art of structural rehabilitation
is necessary.
Traditional art of construction was masonry
building, built as unreinforced masonry (URM) with
wooden floors. Most of historical buildings in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, among them a lot of
important religious buildings, were made of stone-
masonry. They are relatively stiff and show
generally brittle behavior (Hrasnica, 2012). This is
shown on Figure 1, the capacity curve of the older
historical masonry building does not intersect the
seismic demand curve. In the case of stronger
earthquakes they could suffer substantial or heavy
damages. Historical and cultural buildings and
monuments have great importance and value, so
they merit special care and protection.

Figure 1. Capacity of different structures regarding their
earthquake resistance.
Structural assessment of historical buildings
presents specific problem considering the ways they
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horizontal deformation
seismic demand
modern seismic design
bad seismic resistant design
older historical buildings


Structural assessment of stone masonry building from
Ottoman period in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mustafa Hrasnica
1
, Amir auevi
2
, Nerman Rustempai
3

1
Faculty of Civil Engineering University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, hrasnica@bih.net.ba
2
Faculty of Architecture University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, causevicamir@hootmail.com
3
Faculty of Architecture University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, nermanr@af.unsa.ba


ABSTRACT: Traditional art of building in Bosnia and Herzegovina comprises brick or stone masonry
structures. Most historical buildings belonging to national cultural heritage were made of stone-masonry. The
country is situated in seismic active region of South-East Europe. In the case of stronger earthquake motion
such buildings could suffer heavy damages. Some structural elements of historical buildings, as domes and
arches, crack already by moderate earthquake but without the loss of stability. Substantial damages were
caused by recent war disaster. Damages could be accumulated through the history as well. Generally, stone-
masonry buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be classified in vulnerability classes between A and C
according to European Macroseismic Scale. Design and construction procedures for rehabilitation are
presented here on examples of repair and strengthening of mosques, which present historical stone masonry
structures dating from the Ottoman period in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Traditional and contemporary
materials were used for their rehabilitation. It is important to preserve original forms, especially those of
damaged elements. The challenge for structural engineers and architects was to find equilibrium between
aesthetical and structural demands.

were built and the materials, which were used
(Hrasnica, 2009). The damages are sometimes
cumulated through many years and many causes, for
example few moderate or stronger earthquakes. In
the last 50 years several strong earthquakes hit
Bosnia and Herzegovina or its neighborhood
(Earthquake in Skopje Macedonia 1963, Banja
Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1969, Friuli, North-
East Italy 1976 and Montenegro Coast 1979). They
caused substantial damages, many historical stone
masonry buildings were heavy damaged. Besides the
risk of seismic damages, a lot of historical and
cultural buildings were damaged or even destroyed
during the last war in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(1992-95).
2 ASSESSMENT OF HISTORICAL STONE
MASONRY BUILDINGS
Structural assessment of historical buildings presents
specific problem considering the ways they were
built and the materials, which were used. Different
specific problems arise by reparation and necessary
strengthening or retrofit, for example to achieve
earthquake resistance demanded by modern seismic
codes. The aim is to preserve and reveal their
aesthetic and historical values and to use original
materials and original way of construction, if
possible. But, where traditional techniques prove
inadequate some modern construction and
conservation techniques must be implemented. The
same problems occur with traditional construction
materials. In order to provide necessary resistance
and ductility and fulfill the demands of new building
codes the contemporary building materials have to
be carefully implemented in the structures of those
buildings.
Within European Macroseismic Scale (EMS,
1998) there is seismic vulnerability classification
where building can be classified from A, weakest
seismic structures to F, buildings with very good
earthquake resistant design. Furthermore, there is a
damage grades classification from grade 1
(negligible to slight damage or no structural damage)
to grade 5 (destruction or very heavy structural
damage). In spite of the fact that both classifications
were developed for regular multistory buildings,
they can be implemented for historical buildings as
well, taking into account that they possess rather
specific structural systems. The medieval stone
masonry buildings are mostly brittle structures and
can be ordered as unreinforced masonry (URM).
Generally, the stone masonry structures belong to
classes A and B in rare cases to class C, which
means that they are rather vulnerable already for
moderate earthquake motions.
The class of building vulnerability, which
depends on the structural type, can be related to
damage degrees, which can be expected for different
seismic intensities (Hrasnica, 2009). If those
relations are implemented on historical stone
masonry building, serious damages could be
expected already for 7
th
degree of seismic intensity.

Figure 2. Dome's structure and typical cracks in dome
masonry.
The historical buildings are traditionally built as
unreinforced masonry without confining elements,
in the way the confinement is assumed in modern
technical codes. In some regions timber confinement
or iron belts were used at stone masonry buildings.
Typical curved structural forms as domes, arches
and vaults are often part of historical buildings
especially the religious one. As they are built as
unreinforced masonry structures, the historical
buildings are relatively stiff and show generally
brittle behavior. The first damages in form of cracks
appear already by moderate earthquakes on softer
structural elements as domes and arches, or ceilings
by wooden floors and on partition walls, if there are
any. At the same time the main structure, as dick
walls and abutments, is in linear range of the
behavior, with no or almost no cracks. But, it's
generally not true for very strong earthquake motion.
Typical cracks are shown on the Figure 2. The
cracks on the dome are opened orthogonal to ring
tension forces.
Similar cracks could be observed on the dome of
ekrekija mosque in Sarajevo (Figure 3). The
mosque, built in 1526, is situated in the heart of the
old city and was one of the first mosques with the
dome constructed during Ottoman period in Bosnia
and Herzegovina (Hrasnica, 2010). An exception
was the position of the minaret, which penetrated
through the cupola. The observed damages were
cumulated through the centuries. Probably first hair
cracks had opened during some earthquake motion

in the history and during the time they became
larger.

Figure 3. ekrekija mosque in Baarija, Sarajevo.
The most of the damages were concentrated in
the mosque dome, and partially in the walls. The
cracks were typical for this type of the masonry
structures, going in meridian direction (Figure 4).
The cracks width was mostly in the range from 1 to
10 cm. Instead of original space type of the dome
structure few plane arch structures were formed,
which provided the roof stability, but not the
functionality. At the same time there were no
damages registered on minaret, while it was
separated from the dome through the joint (gap)
between them.

Figure 4. Cracks in the mosque's dome.
The damages on the mosques after earthquake in
Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1969 are
presented on Figures 5 and 6. The walls of
Arnaudija mosque (Hrasnica, 2012b) suffered from
large inclined cracks over the window (see Figure
5). The windows in the mosques walls and domes
represent the weak places in the rather stiff and
brittle structure. It cracks already due to moderate
earthquake motions. It is to notice that damages can
be accumulated through history as the consequences
of different seismic activities.

Figure 5. Cracks on the mosque walls due to 1969 earthquake.
The minaret of Ferhad-Paas mosque cracked
above the balcony, where the significant change of
stiffness exists (see Figure 6). As usual, the
minarets cross-section is thinner above the balcony
and exactly at that level the minaret was cut by the
earthquake. It can be concluded, that the damages
occurred at the expected places.

Figure 6. Damage on the minaret after 1969 earthquake.
3 REHABILITATION PROCEDURES
Rehabilitation of historical building, whatever under
the term rehabilitation could be assumed (repair,
strengthening, retrofit, etc.) represent real challenge
for structural engineers and architects. They have to
find equilibrium between aesthetical and structural
demands. It is very important to preserve original
forms and to use, as far as possible, original building
materials. The engineers should try to fulfill the
demands of modern technical codes, or at least to
respect them. Special attention has to be paid to
seismic regulations. On the other hand conservator's
requests and conditions are crucial to preserve


aesthetical and cultural values of the historical stone
masonry buildings.
Ferhad-paa's mosque (Figure 7) represent quite
good example for the assessment of historical stone
masonry buildings, revealing many question about
appropriate rehabilitation considering both structural
and aesthetical aspects. The mosque was first
damaged by strong earthquake in 1969, then
repaired and finally totally destroyed by means of
explosive in 1993. Since 2002 runs the
reconstruction project, in fact rebuild of the mosque
in its original form.

Figure 7. Ferhad-paa's mosque in Banja Luka before
destruction.
The mosque was built in 1579, the early Ottoman
period in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Figure 7). It was
built in the heart of the city of Banja Luka and it was
for the centuries the real distinctive mark of the
town. Design and erection of the mosque were
conducted by an unknown apprentice of Mimar
Sinan. The mosque was built as stone masonry
building. The non-regular shape of the mosque in a
plan comprises the central part of 9x9m size covered
by a hemispherical dome, two side-rooms of 39m
and front part of 4.59m, all three covered by one
half of hemispherical dome. Entrance area of aprox.
155m is covered by three smaller hemispherical
domes. The top of the domes is 18 m above the
ground level. The total height of the minaret
(mosque tower) is 43 m.
The mosque structural elements are typical for
masonry stone mosque buildings built in Bosnia and
Herzegovina from 16th to mid 19th century. The
dome is supported by octagonal drum and
pendentives. The loads are then transferred to four
arches, which closed the central part of the mosque.
This was an exception, because of its non-regular
shape in a plan. The typical structural solution
comprises the walls instead of the arches. The
minaret was built in with the main part of the
mosque building up to the height of 9.5m. The walls
thickness is 105 cm, they consist of outer very fine
shaped blocks and inner core filled with rubble stone
in mortar. The main stone material used for the
erection of the mosque was tuff (sedra). Hydraulic
mortar was used for brickworks. The thickness of
minaret tube was 53 cm under the balcony (erefet)
and 31 cm above it. The basic vibration period of
minaret as cantilever tube is around 1 second. The
dome was built as brick masonry with minimum
thickness of 35 cm. Specific type of brick, named
tugla was applied.
As it is shown in previous chapter (Figure 6)
Ferhad-paa's mosque was hit by strong earthquake,
where the most striking damage effect is cut off of
minarets upper part, besides typical cracks in the
walls. The cracks were mostly repair by injection,
but minaret tower was built up again, strengthened
with the inner ring, thickness of 8cm, made of
reinforced concrete. At that poque it was logical
solution, but nowadays it would raise a lot of
discussions and opposite opinions. And probably it
would lead to the conclusion that it couldn't be
accepted at all, perhaps due to conservator requests.
On 7.05.1993 the mosque was completely
destroyed in barbaric way, using explosive, only
foundation structure left behind (Figure 8). It should
be noted here that the minaret withstood the first
blast and was destroyed in the next planted
explosion. Perhaps the inner reinforced concrete
core, built in after the earthquake in 1969 helped
minaret to withstand the first attack.

Figure 8. Detail of existing foundations with emphasis on oak
micro-piles.

The rebuild project gave rise to lot of discussions
and opposite opinions mostly between structural
engineers and architects. However, the old
strengthening method was not accepted by
conservator for the new rehabilitation project. The
reasons are unacceptable differences to the original
historical concept of the mosque building, which
should be rebuild with completely identical
geometrical dimensions and as far as possible using
the same materials as before.
The structural analysis was done using
sophisticated finite element modeling but some
simpler methods were applied as well. It was taken
in account that the mosque is situated in the seismic
zone IX according to seismic intensity scales, MKS
or EMS-98, which means PGA up to 0, 35 g. This
imposed significant seismic demand to originally
unreinforced masonry structure. The results had
shown that the original structure needs to be
retrofitted. The mosque building is very stiff with
low ductility capacity, while the minaret response is
dominated by flexural mode. Besides that, taking in
account the results of the soil investigations in situ,
shallow existing foundations were marked as
inadequate.
Existing foundation structure was tightened and
strengthened by reinforced concrete jacketing on
micro-piles with the diameter of 200 mm. In this
way the existing foundation, including oak piles,
was retained.

Figure 9. Built in of carbon strips.
Two strengthening methods were proposed to
capture the effects of ring tension forces in the lower
part of the mosque dome. The traditional method
comprises horizontal reinforcement in mortar layer.
Thin reinforcement bars, diameter 6 and 8, should be
built in mortar layer closing horizontal ring form.
The other strengthening method preview built in of
carbon strips in the same ring form, as it is presented
on Figure 9. This figure shows the works on
ekrekija mosque dome, dating originally from the
same historical time period as Ferhad-paa's mosque.
The purpose of the horizontal reinforcement, either
traditional steel bars in the mortar or modern carbon
strips bonded on the masonry is to prevent excessive
openings of radial cracks, which could be expected
in the lower part of the dome (see also Figure 4).
Some of the risks by implementing carbon strips are
reliability of bond between carbon strips and
masonry, anchorage of strips to the masonry and
differences in the behavior of two materials.
The most obvious need for strengthening is that
of the slender minaret structure. To fulfill the
demands of modern seismic codes it is necessary to
increase flexural resistance. Few solutions for the
strengthening of minaret were proposed, with
traditional and new building materials. The common
for all proposals was bad acceptance by the
conservators.

Figure 10. Traditional solution with vertical reinforcement
bars.
Traditional solution comprises vertical
reinforcement bars built in the previously drilled
holes in the masonry stone elements. To assure
efficiency of reinforced masonry structures the holes
and the reinforcement have to be grouted by special
mortar mix. The circular cross-section of the minaret
enables forming of reinforcement ring, view in a
plan. The bars are built in the middle of the stones.

This solution was later chosen for the
implementation.
Similar strengthening method is shown on the
next Figure 10. The vertical reinforcement bar are
built in the recesses, cut in the inner perimeter of the
minaret tube and later on grouted by mortar. This
solution is simpler for the construction but less
effective due to the significant reduction of cross-
section flexural capacity, compared to typical
vertically reinforced masonry with the bars in the
middle of stones.

Figure 11. Strengthening with fiber reinforcement..
Another solution comprises application of new
materials (Figure 11). FRP sheets are glued onto the
inner face of the minaret masonry structure, as
proposed in (auevi, 2012). This solution provides
the principle of minimum intervention,
implementing contemporary materials at the same
time. However there is similar structural
disadvantage as in previous case. Considering cross-
section capacity the internal forces lever arm is
reduced.
Another possibility is to use stiffer carbon strips.
A suggestion from architect was built in carbon
strips on the outer face of the minaret cross-section
into previously cut narrow vertical openings. This
solution was rejected due to the aesthetical reasons,
while the carbon strips disturb the original
appearance of minaret.
4 CONCLUSIONS
Structural assessment of stone masonry building
from Ottoman period in Bosnia and Herzegovina is
discussed in the paper. Those building belong now
to the historical and cultural heritage of the country
and merit special care and protection. Due to the fact
that Bosnia and Herzegovina is situated in active
seismic region of the South-East Europe, they were
exposed to moderate or even stronger earthquake
motions. Damages are sometimes accumulated
through the history. A lot of historical buildings
were heavily damaged or even destroyed during the
war in 1992-95. Structural assessment and
rehabilitation procedure must be carefully conducted
in order to preserve cultural and aesthetical value of
those buildings, considering the demands of modern
structural code, as well.
Damage pattern, repair and strengthening
solutions are discussed on examples of mosques
dating form Ottoman period. The structural analysis
yield necessity of strengthening in foundation,
cupola and especially minaret structure. Few
strengthening methods were presented, traditional
reinforcement method and implementation of new
carbon materials. The efficiency of individual
methods should be observed in the future.
REFERENCES
EMS-98, European Macroseismic Scale, 1998. Ed:
G. Grntal, European Seismological Commission,
Luxembourg.
Hrasnica, M., 2009. Damage Assessment of Masonry
and Historical Buildings in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Chapter in: Damage assessment and
reconstruction after war or natural disasters, Eds:
Ibrahimbegovi and Zlatar, NATO Science for
Peace and Security Series. Netherlands: Springer
Verlag.
Hrasnica, M., 2012. Aseismic buildings (in Bosnian),
Faculty of Civil Engineering University of
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Hrasnica M., Zlatar M., Kolukija S., Humo M. &
Madarevi M., 2010. Seismic strengthening and
repair of typical stone masonry historical
buildings in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: 8
th

International Masonry Conference, 4-7.07.2010
Dresden, Germany.
Hrasnica, M. & Medi, S., 2012. Seismic
Strengthening of Historical Stone Masonry
Structures in Bosnia Herzegovina. In: 15
th
World
Conference on Earthquake Engineering. WCEE
24-28.09.2012, Lisboa.
auevi, A. & Rusmpai, N., 2012. Evaluation of
stability of masonry minaret in high seismicity
region, In: 1AR Arhitektura, reziskave/
Architecture, Research 2012/1, Faculty of
Architecture, Ljubljana, Slovenia.