Abstract
The seismic risk assessment of the historical and architectural heritage is, nowadays, a very relevant topic due the potential human and economic losses involved in case of global or partial collapse. In order to preserve the inestimable value of such heritage, the prevention and mitigation of the seismic risk is needed and it cannot be postponed. Among the several methods available in the literature to perform vulnerability assessment on cultural heritage, this study focuses on two simplified methods proposed by the current Italian Directive containing the guide lines for assessment and reduction of cultural heritage seismic risk. Furthermore, a new simplified method is applied, capable at a territorial scale of quickly ranking the seismic behavior of ancient churches. In the paper, the considered evaluation methods are applied to the case study of the Matera Cathedral, named SS. Maria della Bruna. Then, the obtained results are compared with others of similar ancient churches, all belonging to the historical centre ‘Sassi of Matera’, a site protected by UNESCO having a moderate seismic hazard.
Highlights
Natural disasters, such as volcanoes, floods, landslides, hurricanes, earthquakes, and climatic changes, represent a real danger for the conservation of the existing cultural heritage
According to an estimation provided by World Bank (World Bank Indipendent Evaluation Group, 2006), natural disaster damage costs are increasing, and they have achieved about 652 billion US dollars in the 1990s
Different documents have been proposed such as, among the others, the Mexican risk identification atlas (CENAPRED, 2014), and the territorial information systems proposed in ISCR (2017). In line with these premises, this paper presents a comparative study of the seismic performance of ancient masonry churches
Summary
Natural disasters, such as volcanoes, floods, landslides, hurricanes, earthquakes, and climatic changes, represent a real danger for the conservation of the existing cultural heritage. While a general discussion on the application of non-linear analyses and the comparisons with the macro-element approach may be found in Castellazzi et al (2013) and Valente and Milani (2018b) It is the most simplified one, the LV1 method is useful for evaluations at a territorial scale capable of providing, through a vulnerability index, an estimation of the ground acceleration related to the collapse. The beginning of the failure mechanism, according to Eurocode 8 (CEN, 2004) and Italian Design Code (Ministerial Decree, 14/01/2008), corresponds to the Damage Limit State (DLS) and it is associated with a lateral forces multiplier usually indicated as α0 In this method, a primary importance is represented by the definition of the macro-elements that, as known, are strictly dependent on manufacturing techniques and structural details such as, for instance, elements connections or existing cracks. In the Italian historic catalog (CPTI, 2015), some events with macro-seismic intensity equal to 7 and many events
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