Kinematic approach for seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry churches

Abstract

The application of reliable predictive methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment of historical buildings represents a challenging issue in the process of risk mitigation at regional/national scale, in order to undertake appropriate strategies aimed at achieving acceptable safety levels. For the application of such policies, the availability of adequate procedures for the correct evaluation of the seismic risk of specific assets, like churches, is a fundamental topic of investigation. In this paper, a simple procedure based on the linear and non-linear kinematic approach is applied to evaluate the seismic capacity of masonry churches, both in terms of spectral acceleration and spectral displacement. To check the reliability of such a procedure, the obtained results have been compared with the damage scenario observed on a population of churches analysed by the research group in the aftermath of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake.