Structural and Thermal Retrofitting of Masonry Walls: The Case of a School in Vittoria (RG)

Abstract

Sustainability awareness of buildings life-cycle represents one of the most important engineering challenge. This is more important in developed country like Italy in which buildings age and importance can be huge. Consequently, the whole life-cycle of constructions should be analyzed and assessed during the design of retrofitting interventions. This works reports on the application of an integrated approach to evaluate structural and thermal retrofitting strategies for masonry walls. Ecological (equivalent CO 2 ) and economic costs of each examined retrofitting solution are evaluated and compared. In this way the structural and thermal capacity of the masonry walls is represented by an iso-cost mapping. The environmental demand considering both thermal and seismic load of the construction site is represented by an equivalent function that is used to find the optimal retrofitting solution for each considered cost. In this case study the masonry walls of a school located in Vittoria (RG - Italy) are considered. Six retrofitting techniques are described and the comparison between ecological and economical cost allowed to highlight the characteristics of the different interventions and the best retrofitting strategy.