New integrated knowledge-based approaches to the protection of cultural heritage from earthquake-induced risk

Previous experiences exposed the urgency to re-think the methodological and technical approaches to seismic vulnerability of historic buildings, on the grounds of the adverse impact induced by the inadequacy of preventive measures applied in the past often too intrusive, cost-inefficient, and unreliable. This paper presents a new integrated methodology, developed within the European project NIKER, which establishes a wider, multi-disciplinary framework of activities including essential steps complementary to the execution of interventions. Such methodology formalizes four different interrelated phases namely the investigation, intervention, evaluation, and management phases. The paper closely explores the intervention stage providing a review of the main techniques developed and tested during the project. More specifically, it discusses the developed technologies and tools including optimum interventions for vertical and horizontal elements and building connections as well as advanced instrumented dissipative devices. The impact of the project results on the expert and non-expert communities is also discussed