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

A moving interface finite element formulation to predict dynamic edge debonding in FRP-strengthened concrete beams in service conditions

A new methodology to predict interfacial debonding phenomena in fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) concrete beams in the serviceability load condition is proposed. The numerical model, formulated in a bi-dimensional context, incorporates moving mesh modelling of cohesive interfaces in order to simulate crack initiation and propagation between concrete and FRP strengthening. Interface elements are used to predict debonding mechanisms. The concrete beams, as well as the FRP strengthening, follow a one-dimensional model based on Timoshenko beam kinematics theory, whereas the adhesive layer is simulated by using a 2D plane stress formulation. The implementation, which is developed in the framework of a finite element (FE) formulation, as well as the solution scheme and a numerical case study are presented

Large scale seismic vulnerability and risk of masonry churches in seismic prone areas: two territorial case studies

In this paper, seismic vulnerability and risk assessment of two samples of churches, located in Teramo and Ischia island (Naples gulf), both affected by the most recent earthquakes that occurred in Italy, are presented. To this aim, we applied a simplified method particularly suitable for seismic evaluations at a territorial scale, providing a global resulting score to be compared among the cases analyzed. The data obtained allowed us to provide vulnerability maps and a seismic risk index for all the considered churches. In addition, the calculated indexes permit a preliminary health state evaluation of the inspected churches, for ranking the priorities and planning additional in-depth evaluations

a numerical model based on ale formulation to predict fast crack growth in composite structures

Abstract A novel numerical strategy to predict dynamic crack propagation phenomena in 2D continuum media is proposed. The numerical method is able to simulate the behavior of materials and structures affected by dynamic crack growth mechanisms. In particular, an efficient computational procedure based on the combination of Fracture Mechanics concepts and Arbitrary Lagrangian and Eulerian approach (ALE) has been developed. This represents a generalization of previous authors' works in a dynamic framework with the purpose to propose a unified approach to predict crack propagation using dynamic or static fracture mechanics and a moving mesh methodology. The crack speed is explicitly evaluated at each time step by using a proper crack tip speed criterion, which can be expressed as function of energy release rate or stress intensity factor. In order to validate the formulation, experimental and numerical results available from the literature are considered. In addition, a parametric study to verify the prediction of proposed modeling in terms of mesh dependence phenomena, computational efficiency and numerical complexity is developed

On the influence of the aggregate condition on the vibration period of masonry buildings: A case study in the district of Naples

The present paper deals with the seismic investigation of a masonry building aggregate within the city of Bacoli (district of Naples) through quick and mechanical analyses with the initial target of evaluating the vibration periods of the individual Structural Units (S.U.) constituting the compound. In conclusion the comparison in terms of seismic vulnerability indexes between S.U. included in the aggregate, distinguishing the position (head or intermediate) in the compound, and the same S.U. considered as isolated constructions has been done

The influence of local mechanisms on large scale seismic vulnerability estimation of masonry building aggregates

The current paper deals with the seismic vulnerability evaluation of masonry constructions grouped in aggregates through an “ad hoc” quick vulnerability form based on new assessment parameters considering local collapse mechanisms. First, a parametric kinematic analysis on masonry walls with different height (h) / thickness (t) ratios has been developed with the purpose of identifying the collapse load multiplier for activation of the main four first-order failure mechanisms. Subsequently, a form initially conceived for building aggregates suffering second-mode collapse mechanisms, has been expanded on the basis of the achieved results. Tre proposed quick vulnerability technique has been applied to one case study within the territory of Arsita (Teramo, Italy) and, finally, it has been also validated by the comparison of results with those deriving from application of the well-known FaMIVE procedure

Seismic vulnerability of different in geometry historic masonry towers

In the present paper, a simple predictive approach for the seismic vulnerability of existing masonry towers is proposed evaluating it on a series of “idealized” benchmark cases using different simplified approaches, namely the procedure proposed by the Italian code and pushover conducted with two commercial codes (UDEC and Tremuri). In UDEC the geometry is intentionally idealized into quadrilateral elements with different thickness, in order to properly reproduce the hollow square cross-section. The utilization of a 2D approach drasti-cally reduces the computational effort required in carrying out medium scale systematic com-putations. In Tremuri macro-elements are used, providing very fast predictions as well. Within such simplified frameworks, 16 different cases that can be encountered in practice are critically analyzed, changing two key parameters that proved to be important for the vulnerability determination, namely slenderness and transversal shear cross area. The simplifications introduced in the modelling phase allow for fast sensitivity analyses in the inelastic range and an estimation of the acceleration factor in that range of slenderness that is useful for practical purposes. Simplified formulas fairly representing the obtained seismic vulnerability are also reported and put at disposal to any practitioner interested in a prelimi-nary estimation of the behavior of the towers before doing any calculation. For validation purposes, the results obtained previously by one of the authors by means of refined full 3D Abaqus discretizations on 25 existing towers located in the Northern Italy are also reported. Good agreement between the predictions provided by the simplified method here proposed and previously presented reference data is obtained