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Analysis of damage mechanisms suffered by Italian fortified buildings hit by earthquakes in the last 40 years

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Abstract

This paper presents an empirical approach to studying the seismic behaviour of fortified buildings, including castles, fortresses, and citadels. The first step for a focused preventive intervention on this building typology, characterised by the presence of towers, defensive walls and other particular elements, is to identify recurring vulnerabilities. Over 750 castles and 7 seismic events which have hit Italy in recent decades have been considered, including the earthquakes in Central Italy in August and October 2016. For each seismic event, the characteristics of the earthquake have been described by means of shake maps, while the castles in the area have been identified and inserted in a specifically formulated geographic information system. Subsequently, a thorough archival and bibliographical research on the damage suffered by the most significant case histories allowed the comparison of the damage observed in the castles with different characteristics in terms of soil, materials, building typologies and conservation status. A previously proposed table of damage mechanisms was adopted and verified on a larger number of castles, suggesting some modifications. Lastly, statistical analysis on these data was conducted in order to inspect possible connections between building features, peak ground acceleration and damage mechanisms. The results have shown a good agreement with the existing vulnerability curve and the small amount of numerical analyses proposed in the literature for the same building typology.

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Acknowledgements

Wide-ranging research like this requires the contribution of many people in order to make the documentation about buildings all over Italy dating back to decades ago available. This work wouldn’t have been possible without the data provided by Rosa Carafa, Livio Fantoni, Vittorio Foramitti, Alberto Moretti, Simona Patrizi, and Alberto Pugliese. Their contribution is thus gratefully acknowledged by the Authors. Furthermore, the Authors would like to thank Sergio Lagomarsino for his precious advice and for providing data on vulnerability curves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering and Architecture, Università degli Studi di Parma, Viale delle Scienze 181/A, 43100, Parma, Italy

    Eva Coïsson & Daniele Ferretti

  2. Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129, Turin, Italy

    Erica Lenticchia

Authors
  1. Eva Coïsson
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  2. Daniele Ferretti
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  3. Erica Lenticchia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniele Ferretti.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

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Coïsson, E., Ferretti, D. & Lenticchia, E. Analysis of damage mechanisms suffered by Italian fortified buildings hit by earthquakes in the last 40 years. Bull Earthquake Eng 15, 5139–5166 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-017-0172-0

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