Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Historical Masonry Buildings in Croatian Coastal Area

Abstract

(1) Background: The protection of built heritage in historic cities located in seismically active areas is of great importance for the safety of inhabitants. Systematic care and planning are necessary to detect the seismic vulnerability of buildings, in order to determine priorities in rehabilitation projects and to continuously provide funds for the reconstruction of the buildings. (2) Methods: In this study, the seismic vulnerability of the buildings in the historic center of Kaštel Kambelovac, a Croatian settlement located along the Adriatic coast, has been assessed through an approach based on the calculation of vulnerability indexes. The center consists of stone masonry buildings built between the 15th and 19th centuries. The seismic vulnerability method was derived from the Italian GNDT approach, with some modifications resulting from the specificity of the buildings in the investigated area. A new damage–vulnerability–peak ground acceleration relation was developed using the vulnerability indexes and the yield and collapse accelerations of buildings obtained through non-linear static analysis. (3) Results: A seismic vulnerability map, critical peak ground accelerations for early damage and collapse states, and damage index maps for two return periods have been predicted using the developed damage curves. (4) Conclusions: The combination of the vulnerability index method with non-linear pushover analysis is an effective tool for assessing the damage of a building stock on a territorial scale.

Post-Earthquake Assessment of a Historical Masonry Building after the Zagreb Earthquake—Case Study

“…Therefore, the crucial part of strategies for seismic risk mitigation and for improving the resiliency of cities should be the continuous vulnerability assessment [8]. Although, seismic vulnerability assessment of historical masonry buildings in Croatia was conducted for the Adriatic coast [9], that is not the case for the city of Zagreb which is located in the continental part of the country. However, with the lessons learned from the Zagreb earthquakes, it is obvious that the assessment and rehabilitation of existing masonry structures must be performed at the highest level using a variety of state-of-the-art techniques.…”

“…For a better understanding of the building's exterior state of damage, laser scanning was performed with the Leica BLK360 device (Figure 4) and an UAV was used (Figures 5 and 6). Additionally, laser scanning or drone imaging may form a point cloud of the exterior and the interior of the building [9]. In the end, if it is possible, nondestructive testing (NDT) methods should be used [28][29][30][31].…”

Seismic Risk Assessment of Urban Areas by a Hybrid Empirical-Analytical Procedure Based on Peak Ground Acceleration

“…While the aforementioned studies analyzed single buildings in the Adriatic coastal area, a first version of the present hybrid procedure [33] was recently applied by the authors for the assessment of seismic vulnerability and damage of a limited number of stonemasonry buildings in the historical core of Kaštel Kambelovac. With respect to the previous contribution [33], where only two limit states were considered, the hybrid methodology in the present paper is fully generalized and extended to define vulnerabilitypeak ground acceleration relations for three limit states of the buildings of the entire settlement, which comprises 400 buildings.…”

“…While the aforementioned studies analyzed single buildings in the Adriatic coastal area, a first version of the present hybrid procedure [33] was recently applied by the authors for the assessment of seismic vulnerability and damage of a limited number of stonemasonry buildings in the historical core of Kaštel Kambelovac. With respect to the previous contribution [33], where only two limit states were considered, the hybrid methodology in the present paper is fully generalized and extended to define vulnerabilitypeak ground acceleration relations for three limit states of the buildings of the entire settlement, which comprises 400 buildings. In particular, the investigation of vulnerability indices and capacities of the buildings obtained by nonlinear pushover analyses has been extended from the historical part of the test site, with stone masonry buildings, to the whole test site including more recent buildings constructed in the 20th and 21st centuries.…”

Sourcing Limestone Masonry for the Restoration of Heritage Buildings: Frumoasa Monastery Case Study

“…Thus, the rehabilitation and restoration of these buildings are nowadays considered to be compulsory actions to preserve their historical, religious, architectural, cultural and esthetic values. Among heritage constructions, masonry (made of bricks or stone) is almost always required for maintenance and restoration work [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Hence, a certain need exists to establish a methodology to ensure a trustworthy match between the existing in situ stones and the replacement ones.…”