Seismic damage assessment is an extraordinary opportunity to evaluate the reliability of vulnerability and risk methodologies applied to historic masonry buildings, giving the possibility of enhancing and optimising mitigation and retrofit strategies. Vulnerability index methodologies are flexible and powerful tools for assessing seismic vulnerability on the urban scale, providing a first screening of the critical issues present in masonry buildings and a possible priority list for the following retrofit operations. Such approaches account for the buildings’ different structural characteristics, directly or indirectly influencing their seismic behaviour and measured through different weights and classes finally providing a vulnerability index. In this paper, we show the application of three well-known methodologies to Campi Alto di Norcia’s medieval city in Valnerina (Italy) stroke by the earthquakes of 24 August and 30 October 2016. The methodologies’ reliability is assessed, based on the observation of real seismic consequences and damages on the masonry buildings, and an optimised methodology is then proposed for the considered case study.
Abstract. Seismic damage assessment is a valuable opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of vulnerability and risk methodologies applied to historic masonry buildings, giving the possibility of enhancing and optimizing mitigation and retrofit strategies. Vulnerability index methodologies are flexible and powerful tools for the seismic assessment at urban scale, able to provide a first screening of the critical issues present in masonry structural aggregates. The different structural features of the buildings, directly and indirectly influencing their structural behaviour, are measured through different weights and scores finally achieving a vulnerability indicator. In the present paper, four different vulnerability index methodologies are applied to the medieval city of Campi Alto di Norcia in Valnerina, Umbria, recently stroke by the 2016 Central Italy earthquakes. The accuracy of the adopted Iv methods is assessed based on the real damages’ analysis performed in the surrounding area, comparing results achieved from the application of considered methodologies to direct in-situ observations. Data collected during the 2016 post-earthquake damage surveys and usability assessment, together with the external visual inspections carried out and with the information coming from retrofitting design interventions performed between 1979 and 1997, are used.
Abstract. The recovery and retrofitting techniques adopted for historical structures and archaeological sites face an apparent dichotomy between conservation of constructions and the safety of users. Literatures show several examples where the current day structural safety of historical constructions, gets defined by the nature of past interventions, the compatibility of materials and elements used in retrofitting. The adopted interventions were, in their time, considered innovative, but over the years their compatibility and reversibility leave the historic constructions structurally vulnerable. For these reasons, a careful understanding of the structural systems is fundamental for the implementation of appropriate retrofitting solutions. Especially for monuments and Archaeological sites the objective to be achieved has to be clear, avoiding destructive investigation tests. In this work the instabilities caused by a consolidation intervention on some travertine columns in a sector of the Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as “Colosseum” in Rome, are critically analysed. The current consolidation operations are compared to the previous one. The restoration activity involves in-depth diagnosis process: the historical analysis of the failures and restorations of that area of the Colosseum, a survey of the crack pattern and an indirect investigation on the travertine of the columns. Subsequently the various data coming from the knowledge phase are elaborated, in order to have a correct interpretation of the causes triggering the failure and guide the choice of the most correct retrofitting techniques.
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