Author(s)

L. Binda, G. Cardani & A. Saisi

Abstract

An investigation procedure was proposed by the authors to study the vulnerability of the diffused historic building patrimony in the seismic area. The "minimal" investigation program is to support the designers in their projects. The knowledge of existing buildings is approached by considering different analysis levels: history, materials, structural morphology of the wall section, observed damage mechanisms and effectiveness of retrofitting techniques. This paper extensively describes the investigation carried out on one of the pilot sites, Castelluccio di Norcia. The research was carried out within the frame of a project supported by the Civil Protection Department of the Italian Minister Council aimed at the vulnerability analysis of the historic centres. Keywords: masonry structures, on site and laboratory investigation, vulnerability analysis, historic centres. 1 Introduction The 1997 earthquake gave the occasion to learn about the effectiveness of the repair and retrofitting techniques used on historic buildings. In fact most retrofitting mainly performed with upgrading interventions (substitutions of timber floors and roofs with r.c., jacketing, etc.), have caused unforeseen and serious out-of-plane effects (large collapses, local expulsions), due to the \“hybrid” behaviour activated between the new and the old structures [1]. That effect was not clearly predictable by the existing assessment methods suggested by the Italian standards, which proposed at the time analytical procedures based on hypotheses often not easy to be satisfied in old historic stone masonry buildings, as the effective strong connection among the structural components

Keywords

masonry structures, on site and laboratory investigation, vulnerability analysis, historic centres.