Structural monitoring and vibration-based identification methods are fundamental tools to help assessing the conditions of the structural state, in particular as it concern the conservation of historical buildings and the support to civil protection strategies. Although a large part of the Italian and European historical heritage is composed by masonry and vaulted structures, in the literature, comparatively few papers are targeted to the study of the dynamic behaviour of vaulted systems. The present work originates by a spontaneous collaboration between the Chieti/Pescara University and the Italian Civil Protection Department and focuses on the study of the dynamic behaviour of a barrel vault of the Bussi Castel located in Province of Pescara. The barrel vault suffered some damage as a consequence of the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake. Environmental vibration tests were carried out both in the damaged state and after repair and strengthening. In either conditions, the modal parameters of the vault were identified using operational modal analysis techniques. The comparison of the dynamic behaviour in the two states clearly indicates an improvement in the seismic behaviour of the consolidated vault. The results confirm the validity of structural monitoring for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the structural conditions of vaulted masonry systems.
The effect of the vertical component of earthquakes on the structural behaviour of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls is usually not considered by technical codes for ordinary buildings. Recent scientific literature, however, indicates that the earthquake vertical component may play a significant role in the crack pattern of URM walls and their collapse. This paper investigates the effect of the vertical seismic component on the capacity and damage scenario for a two-story regular URM wall, described with a detailed micro-modelling approach. Pushover and nonlinear time history analyses are carried out with and without the vertical component and under different dead loads representative of typical stress states for URM structures. The inter-story drift and roof drift ratios are introduced as Engineering Demand Parameters (EDPs), and their correlation with the Ground Motion Parameters (GMPs) of the horizontal and vertical components is discussed. The results show a very good correlation between the seismic demand and the GMPs of the vertical component, demonstrating the influence of the vertical component on the global seismic response. Moreover, the study shows that the influence of the vertical component increases with the vertical load applied to the structure, which indicates that the vertical ground motion component cannot be a priori neglected for URM walls when moderate to large vertical GMPs are expected.
Vibration-based structural monitoring is a fundamental tool to assess the conditions of existing structures, in their real operating state. In particular, as concerns masonry buildings, although a large part of the Italian and European historical heritage is composed of vaulted structures, comparatively few papers in the literature are targeted to the study of the dynamic behavior of vaulted systems. The present work focuses on the application of vibration-based structural monitoring to a barrel vault of the Bussi Castle, located in Pescara, Italy, which suffered some damages as a consequence of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. Ambient vibration tests were carried out in the damaged state and after repair and strengthening of the vault for evaluating its dynamic behavior in both states. In either conditions, the modal parameters of the vault were identified using operational modal analysis techniques. The comparison of the modes in the two states, carried out with Modal Assurance Criterion index, clearly indicates an enhancement of dynamic behavior of the consolidated vault. In particular, a new index named Modal Symmetry Index is introduced. The index is based on a proper ratio between mode shapes to evaluate the improvement of the structural symmetry after the restoration interventions. The results confirm the effectiveness of the devised index to evaluate the strengthening interventions and, the potential of the structural monitoring to control the behavior of damaged vaulted masonry systems.
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