Seismic Damage Prediction of Masonry Churches by a PGA-based Approach

The current study focuses on the effects of the seismic events occurred in Central Italy on 2016, which caused in this area unacceptably losses of human life and severe damage to the building stock and monumental heritage. The main aims of this article are first to provide a qualitative picture of damage observed on 68 one-nave churches located in Marche, Umbria, and Lazio, and then to assess the possibility of using an approach based on Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) for predictive purposes. Based on a large number of post-earthquake inspections, which have been carried out within the activity of the Italian consortium ReLUIS, Damage Probability Matrices have been obtained by adopting a macro-element approach. It has been applied to both single damage mechanism and for assessing the global damage of the examined churches. Finally, an expected damage level has been evaluated using a first-level predictive model as a function of vulnerability indexes, allowing a comparison with the actual damage revealed after the earthquake. The obtained outcomes prove that the predictive model is quite reliable for reproducing the damage scenario of churches spread over a large territory, provided that the PGA level is used as a measure of earthquake intensity.