Abstract
Seismic assessment of existing masonry structures requires a numerical model able to both reproduce their nonlinear behaviour and account for the different sources of uncertainties; the latter have to be dealt with since the unavoidable lack of knowledge on the input parameters (material properties, geometry, boundary conditions, etc.) has a relevant effect on the reliability of the seismic response provided by the numerical approaches. The steadily increasing necessity of combining different sources of information/knowledge makes the Bayesian approach an appealing technique, not yet fully investigated for historic masonry constructions. In fact, while the Bayesian paradigm is currently employed to solve inverse problems in several sectors of the structural engineering domain, only a few studies pay attention to its effectiveness for parameter identification on historic masonry structures. This study combines a Bayesian framework with probabilistic structural analyses: starting from the Bayesian finite element model updating by using experimental data it provides the definition of robust seismic fragility curves for non-isolated masonry towers. A comparison between this method and the standard deterministic approach illustrates its benefits. This article is part of the theme issue 'Environmental loading of heritage structures'.
Highlights
The European territory, and the Italian Peninsula in particular, is subject to seismic hazard
This paper proposes a probabilistic Bayesian model updating (BMu) framework for robust seismic fragility analyses, with specific reference to the structural typology of non-isolated historic masonry towers
The procedure allowed us to obtain robust fragility curves, which account for the effect of different sources of uncertainties through a Bayesian updating
Summary
The European territory, and the Italian Peninsula in particular, is subject to seismic hazard. Conde et al [12], while investigating the causes that lead to damage in a masonry arch bridge, adopted an inverse analysis procedure based on the Bayesian approach These studies demonstrate that the Bayesian framework can be employed in the field of historic masonry structures as a useful tool to overcome the difficulties of identifying the proper value for the model parameters when the experimental data are available. Given this background, this paper proposes a probabilistic Bayesian model updating (BMu) framework for robust seismic fragility analyses, with specific reference to the structural typology of non-isolated historic masonry towers. While the classical deterministic approach does not allow us to obtain a measure of the uncertainty contained in the model updating procedure, by introducing the Bayesian paradigm, it is possible to obtain a probability distribution of the results and the possible evaluation of confidence intervals on what has been obtained from the analysis
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