Sensitivity Assessment of the Seismic Response of a Masonry Palace via Non-Linear Static Analysis: A Case Study in L’Aquila (Italy)

Ilaria Capanna,Franco Di Fabio,Massimo Fragiacomo,Angelo Aloisio

doi:10.3390/infrastructures6010008

Ilaria Capanna, Franco Di Fabio + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6010008

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Journal: Infrastructures	Publication Date: Jan 8, 2021
Citations: 15	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of L'Aquila

Abstract

The city of L’Aquila (Italy) includes a significant amount of masonry palaces erected from the middle of the 13th century up to the first half of the 20th century. This paper focuses on the seismic response of a masonry palace built during the first half of the 20th century and characterized by regularity in plan and elevation. The authors investigate the seismic response by varying a suite of modelling parameters that express the actual scatter of the mechanical properties typical of the masonry palaces erected in L’Aquila. The authors discuss the seismic performance exhibited by this building during the 2009 earthquake. Then, they assess the sensitivity of the selected building’s seismic performance via non-linear static analysis to the mechanical properties of masonry, the in-plane stiffness of the floors, and the mechanical resistance of the spandrels. The parametric analysis shows that the three variables markedly affect the shear resistance, the ultimate displacement, and the behavior factors. The fragility functions were then estimated from the results of non-linear static analysis. A significant scatter of the probability of collapse for the considered limit states reveals the limitations of typological approaches for masonry palaces.

Highlights

A significant part of the scientific literature about the seismic response of masonry buildings focuses on evaluating synthetic parameters, expressing the seismic vulnerability from visual inspections [1,2,3]
This typological and synthetic approach descends from the fact that, despite the intrinsic differences between masonry buildings, a limited set of structural parameters affect the seismic response the most
The authors chose to model an existing regular building and varied the modelling parameters according to the scatter observed in the population of masonry palaces in L’Aquila

Summary

Introduction

A significant part of the scientific literature about the seismic response of masonry buildings focuses on evaluating synthetic parameters, expressing the seismic vulnerability from visual inspections [1,2,3]. Several masonry facilities reveal similar structural responses after a seismic event, which leads to classifying the buildings based on typological characteristics [4,5,6,7,8,9]. The in-plane stiffness and resistance of the floors affect the horizontal force’s distribution between the walls and the occurrence of possible out-of-plane phenomena [13] Careful consideration of these variables is a prerequisite for a reliable prediction of a masonry building’s seismic performance. The current research focuses on the seismic response of a masonry palace located in L’Aquila’s historical center (Italy). The authors chose to model an existing regular building and varied the modelling parameters according to the scatter observed in the population of masonry palaces in L’Aquila. The non-linear static analyses’ outcomes are used to derive fragility curves as a function of the spectral demand displacement

Research Significance

The Case Study

Numerical Analyses

Parametric Study

Derivation of the Fragility Curves

Conclusions