Damage detection and optimal sensor placement in health monitoring of “Collegiata di Santa Maria” in Visso (Central Italy)

Seismic protection and vulnerability reduction are very relevant issues in European regions, such as Italy, characterized by the presence of a large stock of cultural heritage structures. This concern increased the interest in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) as a powerful tool to quantify and reduce uncertainties regarding the structural performance of buildings. Vibration-based monitoring can be successfully implemented in some cases to assess the real need for structural interventions or to control the medium -and long- term effectiveness of already applied strengthening solutions. In this paper, dynamic identification techniques are applied to the case study of the Collegiata of Santa Maria in Visso (Macerata Province, Marche Region) heavily damaged by the Central Italy seismic sequence of 2016. In addition, a deterministic approach for Optimal Sensors Placement (OSP)is employed in order to identify how properly place the accelerometers to maximize the quality of SHM information with the minimum number of sensors, aiming at driving the future long-term monitoring of the church.