Abstract
In this contribution a new method for evaluating seismic risk in regional areas based on the acoustic emission (AE) technique is proposed. Most earthquakes have precursors, i.e., phenomena of changes in the Earth’s physical-chemical properties that take place prior to an earthquake. Acoustic emissions in materials and earthquakes in the Earth’s crust, despite the fact that they take place on very different scales, are very similar phenomena; both are caused by a release of elastic energy from a source located in a medium. For the AE monitoring, two important constructions of Italian cultural heritage are considered: the chapel of the “Sacred Mountain of Varallo” and the “Asinelli Tower” of Bologna. They were monitored during earthquake sequences in their relative areas. By using the Grassberger-Procaccia algorithm, a statistical method of analysis was developed that detects AEs as earthquake precursors or aftershocks. Under certain conditions it was observed that AEs precede earthquakes. These considerations reinforce the idea that the AE monitoring can be considered an effective tool for earthquake risk evaluation.
Highlights
A new method to evaluate seismic risk in regional areas is proposed as an attempt to preserve Italian historical and architectural cultural heritage
The spatial and temporal correlations between the acoustic emission (AE) data obtained from the monitoring sites and the earthquakes that have occurred in specific ranges of time and space are examined
The two regions considered in this paper surround the Italian cities of Varallo and Bologna, where the authors have recently carried out AE monitoring of important historical monuments for structural stability assessment
Summary
A new method to evaluate seismic risk in regional areas is proposed as an attempt to preserve Italian historical and architectural cultural heritage. To this purpose, the spatial and temporal correlations between the acoustic emission (AE) data obtained from the monitoring sites and the earthquakes that have occurred in specific ranges of time and space are examined. The present approach leads to a self-consistent analysis and visualization of both spatial and temporal correlations based on the definition of correlation integral [8] Based on these considerations, we have tried to analyze the seismic activity in the considered regions, and to correlate it with the AE activity detected during the structural monitoring. In the modified integral the cumulative probabilities C (r, τ) are the function of the regional radius of interest, r, and of the time interval, τ, both considering the peak of AEs as earthquake “precursors” or “aftershocks” [9]
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