Abstract
Background: The Municipality of Baranello, located in the province of Campobasso, is considered as a reference case study for implementing a systematic procedure for the assessment of local site effects. The territory is characterised by a heterogeneous soil, made of a basal interval formed in large part by outcrops found along with the middle-basal bands of the local slopes, which is particularly sensitive to geo-hazard effects. Aims: The present work aims to investigate the influence of local site effects on the seismic vulnerability of an oriented- class of masonry building compounds. The historical buildings surveyed are mainly made up of rough stone masonry, particularly vulnerable to seismic phenomena. The buildings are appropriately grouped in typological classes based on the CARTIS form and then subdivided into different categories according to the EMS-98 scale based on their geometrical and structural characteristics. Methods: The performed vulnerability analysis is based on a vulnerability-index method conceived for buildings grouped in aggregate condition. Moreover, the expected damage scenario is properly evaluated based on a specific attenuation law to take into consideration the effect produced by a reference scenario event. Furthermore, the local site conditions have been evaluated based on a 1D half space approach in order to predict the possible increment of the expected damage due to the soil stratigraphy. Results: The local site conditions provide a global increment of the expected vulnerability of 33% with respect to the case in which the geo-hazard effects are neglected. In this activity framework, typological fragility curves are derived for comparing the exceeding probability thresholds for the examined building classes. Conclusion: The proposed research represents an important starting point for large-scale vulnerability assessment since it provides a simplified and comprehensive method for predicting seismic damage scenarios of historic center considering local site effects.
Highlights
The tragic earthquakes that occurred in Italy in recent years were a consistent testimony of low seismic performance levels of historical centres of many municipalities due to a series of Generally, in an overall overview, the Vulnerability (V), combined through a multi-factorial procedure with other two parameters, such as Exposure (E) and Hazard (H), leads to the definition of the seismic risk, which can have a direct or indirect influence on a specific site
A seismic vulnerability assessment at urban scale has been implemented in order to evaluate the propensity at the damage of buildings exposed at earthquakes
The study presented and discussed has proposed a novel and refined methodology to analyse the seismic vulnerability of masonry building aggregates in historic centres considering the influence of geo-hazard conditions
Summary
The tragic earthquakes that occurred in Italy in recent years were a consistent testimony of low seismic performance levels of historical centres of many municipalities due to a series of Generally, in an overall overview, the Vulnerability (V), combined through a multi-factorial procedure with other two parameters, such as Exposure (E) and Hazard (H), leads to the definition of the seismic risk, which can have a direct or indirect influence on a specific site. The seismic vulnerability of a given built area denotes the expected amount of damage caused by an earthquake with a specific Intensity Measurement (IM) [1]. In this perspective, the seismic vulnerability assessment of an urban centre is devoted to estimate the propensity of the built-up area to undergo seismic phenomenon without failures, which are responsible for huge economic losses and casualties. The seismic vulnerability assessment of an urban centre is devoted to estimate the propensity of the built-up area to undergo seismic phenomenon without failures, which are responsible for huge economic losses and casualties In this framework, focusing on the urban scale, rapid urbanization has dramatically increased the vulnerabilities of the exposed material assets of urban dwellers in densely populated areas. The territory is characterised by a heterogeneous soil, made of a basal interval formed in large part by outcrops found along with the middle-basal bands of the local slopes, which is sensitive to geo-hazard effects
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