• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제6권1호
• /
• pp.45-69
• /
• 2014

The 2009 L'Aquila, Italy earthquake shook a high density area causing a wide spectrum of damage to reinforced concrete with infill buildings, one of the most common building types used in Italy. The earthquake has proven to be a "full-scale" laboratory to further understand building performance. This paper presents the first results of a joint research effort between the University of Bologna and Degenkolb Engineers, aimed at investigating the seismic behavior of an infilled frame building that collapsed during the earthquake. State-of-the-practice techniques were implemented as a way to determine the reliability of these modeling techniques in anticipating the observed building performance. The main results indicate that: (i) the state-of-the-practice techniques are able to predict the observed behavior of the buildings; (ii) the masonry infills have a great influence on the behavior of the building in terms of stiffness, strength and global ductility.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• 제8권1호
• /
• pp.153-184
• /
• 2015

Most damaging earthquakes come as complex sequences characterized by strong aftershocks, sometimes by foreshocks and often by multiple mainshocks. Complex earthquake sequences have enormous seismic hazard, engineering and societal implications as their impact on buildings and infrastructures may be much more severe at the end of the sequence than just after the mainshock. In this paper we examine whether historical sources can help characterizing the rare earthquake sequences of pre-instrumental times in full, including fore-, main- and aftershocks. Thanks to the its huge documentary heritage, Italy relies on one of the richest parametric earthquake catalogues worldwide. Unfortunately most current methods for assessing seismic hazard require that earthquake catalogues be declustered by removing all shocks that bear some dependency with those identified as mainshocks. We maintain that this requirement has led most modern historical seismologists to focus mainly on mainshocks rather than also on the fore- and aftershocks. To shed light onto major earthquake sequences of the past, rather than onto individual mainshocks, we investigated 10 damaging earthquake sequences ($M_w$ 4.7-7.0) that hit the L'Aquila area and central Abruzzo from the 14th to the 20th century. We find that most of the results of historical research are important for modern seismology, yet their rendering by the current parametric catalogues causes most information to be lost or not easily transferred to the potential users. For this reason we advocate a change in current strategies and the creation of a more flexible standard for storing and using all the information made available by historical seismology.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• 제50권4호
• /
• pp.541-561
• /
• 2014

This paper approaches the issue of seismic vulnerability assessment strategies for facade walls of traditional masonry buildings through the development of a methodology and its subsequent application to over 600 building facades from the old building stock of the historic city centre of Coimbra. Using the post-earthquake damage assessment of masonry buildings in L'Aquila, Italy, an analytical function was developed and calibrated to estimate the mean damage grade for masonry facade walls. Having defined the vulnerability function for facade walls, damage scenarios were calculated and subsequently used in the development of an emergency planning tool and in the elaboration of an access route proposal for the case study of the historic city centre of Coimbra. Finally, the methodology was pre-validated through the comparison of a set of results obtained from its application and also resourcing to a widely accepted mechanical method on the description of the out-of-plane behaviour of facade walls.