Preliminary Analysis on the Effects of 2016 Central Italy Earthquake on One-Nave Churches

Abstract

The seismic events occurred in Central Italy in 2016 caused severe damage to the monumental heritage and in particular to churches. The current study examines the effects on 68 one-nave churches located in Marche, Umbria and Lazio, based on a large number of post-earthquake inspections, which have been carried out within the activity of the Italian Consortium ReLUIS. To define the damage level in post-earthquake status, a macro-element approach has been adopted. The collected data have been processed in order to obtain Damage Probability Matrices (DPMs) for two separate groups of churches, which have been defined according to different occurred levels of macro seismic intensity. Then, according to the methodology proposed by the Italian Guidelines on cultural heritage, a vulnerability index has been determined for each church, taking into account the presence of fragility indicators and antiseismic devices. Finally, the expected damage level has been evaluated using a first level predictive model, allowing a comparison with the observed damage, as it was detected after the earthquake. The obtained outcomes prove that the adopted predictive model is quite reliable for reproducing actual damage scenarios.