Reconstruction process of damaged residential buildings outside historical centres after the L’Aquila earthquake: part II—“heavy damage” reconstruction

Abstract

The reconstruction process of residential buildings severely damaged by the 06 April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, the so called “heavy damage” reconstruction, started after the “light damage” reconstruction process. The “heavy damage” reconstruction involved buildings outside the historical centres assessed as unusable due to high structural and/or non-structural risk. The costs of repair and strengthening of both the “light damage” and the “heavy damage” were directly funded by the State. The procedures to deal with funding applications made by private owners were similar to those related to the “light damage” reconstruction, but specific regulations were issued to regulate the public contributions of severely damaged buildings in L’Aquila and other municipalities. The paper describes such regulations and the data collected during the approval process of funding applications. In particular, the discussion focuses on: the time for the approval of funding applications; the types and costs of the different repair and strengthening interventions designed by practitioners to attain the usability recovery of buildings; the State funding for repair works, strengthening works, tests on material for their mechanical characterization, energy efficiency upgrading, and, in several cases, for demolition and reconstruction; the correlation between structural types of buildings and costs. The process of assessment and State funding of repairs and upgrading of residential buildings outside historical centres that were damaged by the L’Aquila earthquake took less time than past Italian earthquakes with similar or even lower impacts. The data presented may help, inform and encourage decision makers to establish priorities and reconstruction policies for use in the aftermath of future earthquakes. Being prepared for destructive earthquake impacts requires identification of the procedures and tools required to quickly start the reconstruction phase. © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrech

Analysis of the Population Assistance and Returning Home in the Reconstruction Process of the 2009 L’Aquila Earthquake

“…At the end of such a reconstruction phase, funding applications related to 4885 residential buildings OHC of L'Aquila municipality were examined and approved by Filiera for a total grant released to the order of 2.6 billion euros. Details of this first phase of the reconstruction process can be found in References [21,22].…”

“…In particular, the "heavy damage" reconstruction phase of residential buildings with usability rating E involved 8906 applications for funding, corresponding to 1951 buildings. The financial grants related to buildings with usability rating E were allocated for about 74% of the buildings within September 2013 [22]; thus, it is reasonable to believe that the repair/strengthening interventions on these buildings had ended by December 2015.…”

“…The remaining portion probably originated from heavily damaged buildings for which demolition and reconstruction works have not been completed. To this end, it is recalled that, according to data related only to the reconstruction process of buildings OHC, demolition and reconstruction involved 541 buildings out of the 2211 buildings with a usability rating of E [22]. …”

Seismic Retrofit Measures for Masonry Walls of Historical Buildings, from an Energy Saving Perspective

“…In general, restoration projects that include seismic improvements use several different types of intervention. Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of the principal interventions carried out on masonry buildings located outside the historical center of L'Aquila after the earthquake (Mw = 6.3) that occurred in the Abruzzi region on the 6 April 2009 [24,25]. Figure 2a shows the distribution of the most diffuse interventions and Figure 2b shows the distribution of secondary interventions: main intervention, for each building, refers to more widespread and costly work typology; secondary interventions, on the other hand, are complementary to the main ones.…”

Validation of Refined Numerical Modeling for Existing Rc Buildings: Comparison Between Predicted and Observed Earthquake Damage

“…Recent seismic events showed the significant damage to existing RC buildings and the amount of economic and social resources involved in the reconstruction process [1][2][3]. Scientific studies and damage observations in the aftermath of the L'Aquila 2009 earthquake [4,5] outlined that infill wall and partitions are the most damaged nonstructural components (see Figure 1a).…”