Influence of the Thickness of Vaults and Buttresses in the Structural Response of Mexican Colonial Temples

To evaluate the participation of the particular structural elements in the structural response of typical Mexican colonial temples, numerical parametric analyses were performed. From previous studies, the influence of the vaults, towers and buttresses in the out-of-plane behavior has been demonstrate. With the main objective to evaluated the influenced of the thickness of the vault and buttresses, some nonlinear analysis in a typical Mexican colonial temple model were realized. Numerical models were made with different thicknesses of vaults and buttresses. The first results show for gravity actions, that the vault is a fundamental element to reduce the perpendicular displacements to the plane of the façade, but also induces a lateral pushing on the longitudinal walls that can become critical. When thinner is the thickness of the vault, most significantly are this kind of displacements, mainly in the façade. The presence of the buttresses are fundamental to increase the strength of the longitudinal walls under the effect of the pushing forces due by the vaults.