The impact of the cultural value on the seismic vulnerability of a historical building

Abstract

Romania is a country located in Eastern Europe. It has two important seismic areas, Vrancea and Banat. Vrancea seismic region is located close to the biggest city of Romania, Bucharest, which is also the capital, while Banat seismic area is located in the western part of the country. The most important city from the Banat area is Timisoara, which was also elected to be the European Capital of Culture 2021. Beside the general seismicity of the area, which is characterised by shallow earthquakes of crustal type, Timisoara city presents also two seismic faults that cross the western part of the city. The peak ground acceleration is considered to be ag=0.20g, while the maximum recorded magnitude was MW=5.6-5.8. The paper is a part of a larger research work which aims to assess the seismic vulnerability of the historical buildings in Timisoara city and their specific failure mechanisms, through both empirical simplified and mechanical numerical analysis. This study presents a new methodology that was previously proposed by the authors in their work and that considers also the influence of the cultural value in the process of assessing the seismic vulnerability. The consideration of the architectural, artistic, urbanistic and social elements can considerably influence the seismic vulnerability of a building. The highest the cultural value, the highest the need for rehabilitation work. The study is focused on one of the most important historical buildings of the city, Elite’s Palace, and compares the results of the empirical seismic vulnerability assessment with and without considering the cultural value. This kind of research could provide valuable information for the local authorities and could represent the base of a prioritization list for the future rehabilitation work.