Suchergebnisse

The last seismic events in Central Italy (L'Aquila 2009, Amatrice 2016) have demonstrated that the economic loss from physical damage strongly influence the community's recovery capability, especially when a relevant portion of the building stock is represented by unreinforced masonry (URM) constructions. As a matter of fact, URMs are recognized as the most vulnerable structures with respect to seismic forces. Furthermore, damage on masonry usually involves expensive and time-consuming repairing activities that can be carried out only by expert builders. Although these considerations are widely known among the Italian technical-scientific community, nowadays the social and political awareness about the problem is still quite low. One of the key aspects for an effective seismic risk mitigation is the analytical quantification of decision variables (e.g. monetary loss) to be shared with different stakeholders such as building owners, policy makers, insurance companies, etc. In response of this need, new assessment methodologies have been included in technical guidelines. In the present paper, the façade of a historic URM building located in the city center of L'Aquila is adopted as a case-study for the quantification of its seismic-induced economic average annual loss. In detail the Performance Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE) approach proposed by the US FEMA P-58 and the simplified economic assessment methodology included in the Italian Sisma Bonus act are herein discussed and compared, pointing out the salient aspects of their application to URMs.

The last seismic events in Central Italy (L'Aquila 2009, Amatrice 2016) have demonstrated that the economic loss from physical damage strongly influence the community's recovery capability, especially when a relevant portion of the building stock is represented by unreinforced masonry (URM) constructions. As a matter of fact, URMs are recognized as the most vulnerable structures with respect to seismic forces. Furthermore, damage on masonry usually involves expensive and time-consuming repairing activities that can be carried out only by expert builders. Although these considerations are widely known among the Italian technical-scientific community, nowadays the social and political awareness about the problem is still quite low. One of the key aspects for an effective seismic risk mitigation is the analytical quantification of decision variables (e.g. monetary loss) to be shared with different stakeholders such as building owners, policy makers, insurance companies, etc. In response of this need, new assessment methodologies have been included in technical guidelines. In the present paper, the façade of a historic URM building located in the city center of L'Aquila is adopted as a case-study for the quantification of its seismic-induced economic average annual loss. In detail the Performance Based Earthquake Engineering (PBEE) approach proposed by the US FEMA P-58 and the simplified economic assessment methodology included in the Italian Sisma Bonus act are herein discussed and compared, pointing out the salient aspects of their application to URMs.

The paper presents the seismic vulnerability analysis of the military dry dock built in 1861 inside the Messina's harbor. The study appears very important not only for the relevance of the dry dock itself, but also for its social, military and symbolic role. As a first step, the historical documentation about the dry dock delivered by the Military Technical Office, in charge of its maintenance, was thoroughly examined. This activity was fundamental to understand the construction methods, the rehabilitation works executed after the severe earthquake of 1908 and, finally, the works carried out to increase the size of the dry dock in 1950. After this first step, numerical seismic analyses were done with some implemented finite element models (FEM) of the structure. In each FEM, the vertical loads were applied according to the "construction stages" analysis technique, in order to achieve an appropriate representation of the soil stresses around the structure. The analysis results were evaluated according to the Italian design code (NTC 2008) in order to determine the seismic vulnerability of the dry dock.

The paper summarizes the studies conducted on the military dry dock in the Port of Messina (built in 1861), to assess the seismic vulnerability. For this work was conducted an accurate research on the historical sources of Technical Office of the Italian Civil Engineers, to know the construction methods, the operations made after the earthquake of 1908 and to increase the size on 1950. Studies have included the implementation of a finite element model for seismic analysis and with a simulation of construction stages. The analysis results are evaluated against mandatory italian design code to assess the seismic vulnerability of the structure.