VULNERABILITY OF HISTORICAL MASONRY BUILDINGS UNDER EXCEPTIONAL ACTIONS

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VULNERABILITY OF HISTORICAL MASONRY BUILDINGS UNDER EXCEPTIONAL ACTIONS

Author: Gilda Florio | Size: 23.1 MB | Format: PDF | Quality: Unspecified | Publisher: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II Facoltà di Ingegneria | Year: 2010 | pages: 292

This work focuses on the vulnerability of historical masonry buildings under
exceptional actions. So, the three key-concepts of this thesis are:
1. Vulnerability
2. Historical masonry construction
3. Exceptional action
The vulnerability of a constructions represents its propensity to suffer a certain damage level under a catastrophic event, seismic or not. It is commonly expressed by functions or matrices which may be obtained either by statistical studies of damaged buildings in earthquake-struck areas or by simulations using numerical models of the structure. Seismic vulnerability topic is included in the field of seismic risk, which also involves hazard and exposure. The importance of seismic risk is related to the public safety that requires suitable management measures in order to protect people, properties, infrastructures and the built up cultural heritage. Therefore, a seismic risk analysis is aimed at the assessment and the hypothetical, quantitative description of the consequences of earthquakes upon a geographical area in a certain period of time. The most vulnerable construction, but also the most valuable ones, are the historical ones, mostly made of oldest building material, that is masonry. In fact, on one hand ancient masonry structures are particularly vulnerable to dynamic actions, especially seismic actions, since they were designed to resist ordinary vertical loads only, in compliance with the technical rules of their time of construction, so that they present an insufficient safety level against the exceptional actions. On the other hand, old constructions constitute the cultural heritage of a nation, because they are imbued with historicity. This historicity
does not only coincides with the concept of monuments or with the formal architectural language, but also to the specific structural features, applied materials and building techniques and, due to their age, to the fact that they are a part of human life. Thus, the historical heritage include monumental buildings, which may have great artistic values and are characterized by their own unique history, and historical centres, which represent the sign of the human past. The issue of the protection of historic building is very important in Italy. In fact, this Nation is characterized by a large number of ancient monuments and dwellings, apart from innumerable minor centres. This need of preservation of the built up heritage is strongly related to the past lessons. Italy, indeed, has experienced destructive earthquakes throughout its history, which have provoked considerable social and economic losses. For this reasons, the public awareness is very sensitized of this issue and the conservation of the historic heritage becomes a pressing need.

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