Structural identification of the Sehzade Mehmed Mosque through static and dynamic analyses

Abstract

Built between 1543-1548 by the great Turkish architect Mimar Sinan to commemorate the memory of one of the legendary Ottoman Emperor Süleyman's sons, the prince Mehmet, the Sehzade Mehmet Mosque is considered to be one of the first masterpieces of the Ottoman architecture. It is a fact that the research studies carried out up today towards the determination of the earthquake performance of this masterpiece of Ottoman-Turkish Engineering is very limited. Before any numerical or physical analyses, it is essential to make a deep historical survey. So, firstly, I started to research on five historical mosques (the Fatih Mosque, the Beyazit Mosque, the Mihrimah Mosque, the Rüstem Pasa Mosque and the Sehzade Mehmet Mosque) built in the classical ottoman architecture era in order to have detailed information about historical development of the structural features of the Sehzade Mehmet Mosque and then, I studied on the structural characteristics of Sehzade Mehmet Mosque. In this study, the three dimensional finite element model of the Sehzade Mehmet Mosque was constructed in order to investigate the linear structural behavior of the mosque under static and dynamic conditions. Natural frequencies were obtained by the modal analysis of the Sehzade Mehmet Mosque. Finally, the analysis of the improved model under a scenario earthquake for Istanbul was carried out.