Expeditious Methods of Urban Survey for Seismic Vulnerability Assessments

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of the proposal is to illustrate how expeditious procedures of urban survey carried out through photomodeling can be the most suitable representation tool in combination with an expeditious procedure for assessing the seismic vulnerability of the historic building heritage in Italian city centres. For some years, in fact, the research group is developing a protocol for the rapid assessment of the seismic vulnerability of masonry aggregate buildings in Italian historic centres.The protocol is based on the determination of synthetic indicators providing a preventive quantification of the possible earthquake damage. This evaluation procedure is oriented to prevent and reduce the current vulnerability, aiming at the conservation and preservation of the historic building heritage. The synthetic indicators are defined by identifying expeditious evaluation procedures based on the typical evolutionary processes suffered by each aggregate in its planimetric and height development, on the construction techniques and on the design concepts used in the local area; these aspects are directly correlated to failure modes.The application of the entire process (starting from the rapid survey phases up to the final restitution of the seismic vulnerability assessment results) is illustrated for the historic centre of Imola. The ancient nucleus of this city constitutes an excellent example, as it is clearly representative of the Emilian historical architecture both for the processes of formation and transformation of the inhabited area, both for what concerns the constructive characterization deriving from the local building traditions.

Remote Sensing and City Information Modeling for Revealing the Complexity of Historical Centers

“…Nowadays, digital tools give a precious support to the investigation on complex urban contexts and processes, generally characterized by articulate relationships between multiple aspects (Boido et al, 2021;Galizia, Santagati, 2012). Moreover, the fragility of our historical city centers requires specific methodologies that respond to the need to have a rapid mapping of the investigated site (Predari et al, 2019) and/or models for the simulation or the management of critical scenarios (Bocconcino et al, 2021;La Russa, Santagati 2020).…”

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment and Simplified Empirical Formulation for Predicting the Vibration Periods of Structural Units in Aggregate Configuration

“…(r) SU 16 In addition, the behavior of the above-presented SUs was also analyzed in isolated configurations to appreciate the differences in terms of stiffness, ductility, ultimate displacement, and base shear concerning the case of aggregate constructions [4].…”

“…In particular, the presence of not significantly effective connections between the different SUs favors the occurrence of local collapse mechanisms in different cases. Jointly, an aggravation of the kinematic stability conditions is given by the presence of construction irregularities (e.g., orthogonal walls not well connected) and/or geometric (e.g., buildings with different heights), which are the main causes of the activation of out-of-plane collapses [15,16].…”