Conservation and Enhancement of the Pietrabbondante Archaeological Site between History, Geology and Emerging Crowd-Based Digital Technologies

Attention to the condition assessment and conservation of cultural heritage is increasing due to growing sensitivity to the preservation of the built and natural environment and awareness of the risks associated with natural hazards. In this context, a comprehensive approach to the conservation and valorization of cultural heritage requires the combined action of different skills to achieve reliable assessment of the conditions of valuable assets and sites based on qualitative and quantitative indicators. This paper explores the issues of conservation and sustainable management of archaeological sites, considering humanistic and technical aspects. It reviews the current rules and practices concerning the maintenance and administration of archaeological heritage and outlines the implementation of a novel procedure, based on low-cost tools, to assess and describe the current condition of archaeological assets. Specific attention is paid to the interaction between experts and researchers operating in both humanistic and technical fields and to the knowledge and data contribution available on modern web-based platforms to implement reliable and low-cost data acquisition for the development of worthwhile plans for the conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage. The Samnite complex of Pietrabbondante, Molise, South Italy, is employed to apply and check the proposed tools in the real world

Operativna modalna analiza za određivanje svojstava povijesnih građevina

Assessing and reducing the seismic risks associated with historical structures require an appropriate knowledge of structural behaviour and characteristics, as suggested by recent national and international guidelines concerning cultural heritage. However, historical structures are characterised by a high level of uncertainty, which affects material properties and structural schemes and is related to deterioration processes or previous interventions and structural modifications. The level of knowledge can be increased by experimentally evaluating a structure’s dynamic properties, and the resultant data can be used to refine and update numerical models that are representative of the real structural behaviour. Moreover, the periodic monitoring of relevant parameters can help identify eventual deterioration phenomena. Thus, dynamic tests, in conjunction with model updating, are becoming reliable tools for non-destructively assessing historical structures. In this article, a brief discussion of the basic principles of dynamic identification under operational conditions is presented. Two tests with historical structures are then presented, and the main results are reported. The high performance of operational modal analysis techniques and the interesting opportunities these techniques provide for the structural assessment of historical structures are discussed.Ocjena i smanjenje seizmičkog rizika kod povijesnih građevina, zahtijevaju odgovarajuće poznavanje značajki ponašanja takvih konstrukcija, kako to sugeriraju nedavno objavljene nacionalne i međunarodne smjernice za građevine koje spadaju u kulturnu baštinu. Doduše, povijesne građevine su velika nepoznanica što se tiče svojstava materijala i konstrukcijskih sustava, a usto su podložne izmjenama, propadanju te promjenama tipa konstrukcije. Bolji uvid se može dobiti s procjenom dinamičkih svojstava modela konstrukcije, a dobiveni rezultati mogu se upotrijebiti za povećanje preciznosti i kvalitete numeričkih modela za realne konstrukcije. Štoviše, povremeno opažanje relevantnih parametara može pomoći identifikaciji možebitnih procesa propadanja. Zbog toga, dinamički pokusi, povezani s proračunskim modelima, postaju pouzdan alat kao nerazorne metode procjena stanja povijesnih građevina. U članku se razmatraju osnovna načela dinamičke identifikacije u uvjetima upotrebe konstrukcije. Opisana su dva pokusa na modelima povijesnih građevina, a prikazani su i najvažniji rezultati. Raspravlja se o velikoj djelotvornosti tehnike operativne modalne analize te o interesantnim mogućnostima koje ta tehnika pruža za procjenu povijesnih građevina

Seismic and Energetic Interventions on a Typical South Italy Residential Building: Cost Analysis and Tax Detraction

Italian buildings are mainly represented by unreinforced masonry constructions, which were mostly built before 1970, often without respecting seismic design criteria. The main objective of Italian designers is, therefore, to retrofit these buildings in order to improve their safety under earthquake, as well as to preserve the memory of the ancient building art. In addition, the assessment of the building energetic efficiency is nowadays a very pressing need for designers and practitioners. Energetic efficiency represents the capacity to optimize the consumption of energy resources in order to reach prefixed requirements for the environment protection. This paper shows both seismic and energetic retrofitting interventions on a residential unreinforced masonry building typical of the constructive practice in the South Italy. Initially, the building characterization under geometrical and structural viewpoints is done. Subsequently, the seismic vulnerability verification is performed with unsatisfactory results, so requiring upgrading or retrofitting interventions. Moreover, with the aim to increase living comfort and energy efficiency, energetic upgrading interventions, aimed at decreasing the building transmittance, are proposed. Seismic and energetic interventions are then computed from the economic point of view in order to evaluate the financial contributions foreseen by the Italian 2018 Balance Law through the Sismabonus and Ecobonus tools, respectively. Finally, the study proposes a global performance index able to take into account contemporary the seismic, energetic and economic benefits deriving from retrofitting interventions applied on the inspected residential building

structural and seismic monitoring of the cardarelli hospital in campobasso

Abstract Recent earthquakes occurred in Italy and throughout the world have once again emphasized the critical role of health facilities for post-earthquake emergency management. Due to earthquake, several hospitals (L'Aquila 2009, Amatrice 2016) have lost their functionality because of damage to structural as well as non-structural members, equipment and installations. The primary role of hospitals after hazardous events requires the development of specific analysis and monitoring strategies aimed at quickly assessing their health conditions. Turning a hospital into a "Smart Health Facility" (SHF) allows remote assessment of the structural health; moreover, it can effectively support the mitigation of administrative and organizational vulnerability by acting on preparedness of the medical staff and supporting management and maintenance of structural as well as non-structural subsystems over time. Continuous monitoring of health and performance of hospitals can support the formulation of disaster mitigation plans and the definition of investment priorities to ensure the overall safety. In the present paper, some results of an on-going monitoring project for the main hospital in Campobasso (Southern Italy) are presented, focusing the attention on the response of the structure in operational conditions and after seismic events. Moreover, the results of experimental as well as operational modal analysis tests on a drug dispenser are discussed in order to assess their applicative perspectives for qualification of medical equipment in view of their seismic vulnerability assessment as non-structural elements

Co-seismic and post-seismic changes in groundwater discharge: first results from the epicentral region of the central Italy 2016 earthquake

Earthquakes, groundwater flow, carbonate aquifers

the role of the modal assurance criterion in the interpretation and validation of models for seismic analysis of architectural complexes

Abstract The seismic vulnerability assessment of historical buildings is usually a very complex task because of the large number of uncertainties in the characterization of their structural behaviour. The unique structural configurations, the adoption of old construction techniques and the presence of stratified structural modifications occurred over the centuries make the definition of an appropriate and reliable numerical model very challenging. The available analysis approaches distinguish the local response of selected macro elements from the global response of the structure. The problem of discriminating if the investigated structure shows a global behaviour or a local response has been often reported in the literature. However, the definition of a quantitative measure to discriminate the global modes from the local ones and, in the latter case, the associated macro elements, is currently missing. The Modal Assurance Criterion is a vector correlation index frequently used in experimental dynamics to quantify the similarity of mode shapes. In the present paper, it is used to define an original and quantitative approach to the discrimination between local and global modes. Results of application of the proposed procedure to an explanatory case study are reported, pointing out how the proposed method can guide towards the selection of the most appropriate analysis method

VERSATIL TOOLS: DIGITAL SURVEY AND VIRTUAL REALITY FOR DOCUMENTATION, ANALYSIS AND FRUITION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE IN SEISMIC AREAS

Abstract. The paper deals with an interdisciplinary research activity aiming at developing a digital and integrated tool able to collect several data concerning the cultural heritage, and to manage and communicate them to a wide community. The small church of San Menna, located in the hamlet with same name in the municipality of Lucoli not so far from L'Aquila city, was the object of the research. The church has been chosen for its historical significance, its architectural peculiarity and for the valuable artworks that it preserves. Based on a photogrammetric model of the church, also used for the remote analysis of cultural asset (planimetric and evolutionary hypotheses, three-dimensional stratigraphic analysis, etc.) a virtual word usable in Virtual Reality (VR) has been developed. The VR setting allows the accessibility of a digital semantic model with information that can be activated with special interactive hotspots (images, texts and audio), which are able to provide an immersive and all-encompassing experience to the tourist. The potentialities of the same tool in the context of diagnosis and conservation process related to cultural heritage in seismic areas, such as those of the Abruzzi Apennines, have also been investigated through the integration of forms concerning the significant features of the artistic assets surveyed in the construction