Preventive Retrofitting Strategies for Archetype Buildings Representative of the Abruzzo Region

The present paper addresses the development of large-scale vulnerability models for masonry buildings with seismic retrofitting interventions in the Abruzzo region, Italy. The proposed work is the result of an Italian Research Project developed within a cooperative agreement between the Italian Network of University Laboratories of Seismic and Structural Engineering (ReLuis) and the Department of Civil Protection (DPC). The goal is to assess the seismic vulnerability at the urban scale through analytical models accounting for the out-of-plane behavior of masonry structures and to evaluate the vulnerability variation between the “as-built” and “retrofitted” configurations. Thanks to an automated procedure developed by the Authors, archetype masonry buildings are first identified to limit the number of buildings object of analyses. These archetypes are defined according to specific parameters selected from the Cartis form, an Italian tool that collects typological-structural information of the buildings present throughout the national territory. Afterwards, based on information retrieved from the literature and on the effectiveness shown during earthquakes, an exemplary seismic intervention is selected and applied to representative buildings with the aim of quantifying their improved seismic behavior. The results obtained from this investigation are shown by means of fragility curves and can be of great support in the definition of cost-effective risk mitigation strategies, allowing to quantify benefits and costs of possible interventions at the territorial scale.