New Preventive Approach for the Sefaguard of Historical Buildings Under Multiple Seismic Events

A new preventive approach for safeguarding historical masonry structures under multiple seismic events is proposed. The recent seismic sequences that occurred in Europe have caused progressive collapses of many historical structures, such as churches and towers. Therefore, to preserve the cultural heritage a preventive approach that considers the occurrence of multiple seismic events is necessary. The procedure evaluates the structural performance through nonlinear static analyses, which are commonly used in practice, considering a design seismic sequence defined by two or three design earthquakes, according to those prescribed by the building codes. The analyses are performed on Finite Element models in the software Abaqus/CAE, adopting the Concrete Damage Plasticity model to consider masonry nonlinearity and material damage propagation. Structural performance is evaluated in terms of damage level and occurred displacement. In each analysis, the FE model accounts for the damage caused by previous seismic events. With this approach, it is possible to identify necessary strengthening interventions that allow the structure to withstand a design seismic sequence, avoiding the global collapse of the structure itself as well as expensive repair interventions.