Evaluation And Design Criteria For Restoring And Retrofitting Damaged Masonry Buildings

The paper has the aim to suggest some criteria for the seismic evaluation and design of the restoring and retrofitting intervention to be carried out on the masonry buildings damaged by the Umbria – Marche earthquake. The reference codes are the national seismic regulations and the specific seismic regulations endorsed by the technical committee instituted for the post-earthquake construction activities. Starting from these bases a flow chart is proposed to perform the following actions: (i) assessment of the building resistance to vertical and seismic loads prior to the earthquake, (ii) identification of the possible vulnerability sources to be eliminated, and (iii) evaluation of the building resistance after the interventions. The work has been devoted both to masonry and reinforced concrete buildings; in the present paper only masonry structures will be analysed, which are the greatest fraction of the damaged buildings. The proposed procedure is devoted primarily to professional applications, so approximated practical calculations were preferred to more rigorous scientific approaches. The indications from existing regulations and from other relevant research works have been synthesised to make them applicable in the practising activity.