Damage Survey and Advanced Seismic Analyses of Different Masonry Churches After the Central Italy Earthquake of 2016

Abstract

This study presents a detailed failure analysis of different masonry churches, which were severely damaged during the 2016 Centre of Italy seismic sequence, using nonlinear (i.e., kinematic limit and pushover) analyses. The main aims of the numerical investigations are: (i) to carry out a sufficiently wide sensitivity study on different specific case studies to have an insight into the role played by the geometrywhich is always unique for churchesand by the irregularities; (ii) to validate or address the limits of applicability of the most widespread conventional static approaches recommended by Italian Code.