Macro-Scale Analysis of Damage to Churches after Earthquake in Abruzzo (Italy) on April 6, 2009

Abstract

This paper focuses on the effects of the earthquake which struck the Abruzzo region (Central Italy) on April 6 2009, causing considerable damage to many ancient buildings, particularly churches. During the emergency after the earthquake, many churches and other historical monuments (towers, city walls, large town houses, etc.) were surveyed, according to first-level damage survey forms for Cultural Heritage buildings, by multidisciplinary working groups composed of experts from several Italian institutions (Universities, Ministry for Cultural Heritage, Fire Brigade, etc.). This paper presents a statistical study on the information collected by the University of Padova during the surveys, which was later inserted and organized in a database, and illustrates data on damage assessment of the buildings in question. It also presents an intuitive overview of the seismic effects on several churches, allowing not only better understanding of the response of these structures to this particular earthquake, but also correlating data on it with its effects on the churches

Comparative Seismic Assessment of a Medioeval Masonry Church in Southern Italy

“…In FIGURE 5 the deformed shapes near collapse provided by pushover analyses, with indication of the location of control points and the corresponding pushover curves (on the right) are also represented to give an idea of the active failure mechanisms and the amount of displacement reached by the different nodes monitored during the analyses. Only X-and Y-load cases are shown for the sake of conciseness, but it is interesting to notice that failure mechanisms are always local, a peculiar behavior for such kind of structures [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Similar results are found by the authors for the seismic load applied along the positive directions of the geometric axes (i.e.…”

“…The safety assessment under horizontal loads is done using a variety of numerical approaches [9][10][11][12][13][14], ranging from Response Spectrum Analyses RSAs, non-linear static (pushover) and limit analyses.…”

Simulation of masonry out‐of‐plane failure modes by multi‐body dynamics

“…Sometimes, the presence of pre‐existing cracks may guide the identification of the geometry of the potential failure modes. Despite the need for a priori definition of the mechanisms, non dependent on the dynamic behavior of the structure, these methods provide force‐based results that are consistent with the evidence gathered from post‐earthquake surveys, as also recently observed (e.g., 2009 L'Aquila earthquake ).…”

“…However, the mechanism activation, which may be obtained by such force‐based procedures, does not imply the overturning/collapse of a masonry wall, as also reported in . Because the overturning occurs by wall instability rather than the achievement of masonry strength, the displacement capacity of the wall is not taken into account in force‐based procedures.…”

Damage Assessment of Unreinforced Stone Masonry Buildings After the 2010–2011 Canterbury Earthquakes

“…As seen in past earthquakes, for example in Italy (Lagomarsino and Podestà, 2004a;Lagomarsino and Podestà, 2004b;Lagomarsino, 2012, Da Porto et al, 2012 and other seismic prone countries like Chile (Decanini et al, 2012), façade walls are amongst the most vulnerable elements of churches and are often subjected to out-of plane overturning mechanisms either partially or completely involving the façade or top gable. Examining the case of stone masonry churches in Christchurch, the possibility of activation of a certain mechanism, depending on the structural configuration of each church, and its actual occurrence during the seismic event are depicted in Figure 11a.…”