Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Politecnico di Milano

A partire dai terremoti del Friuli (1976) e dell’Irpinia-Basilicata (1980) la comunità scientifica ha approntato una serie di strumenti schedografici per il censimento della vulnerabilità sismica, del danno e dell’agibilità degli edifici, raggiungendo così un duplice risultato: raccolta omogenea di dati tipologico-strutturali finalizzati alla messa a punto di correlazioni tra i parametri sismologici ed i danni accertati e valutazione del livello di agibilità degli edifici danneggiati. Invece, dal punto di vista geologico non c’è stata un’analoga attenzione per gli strumenti di rilievo; sebbene nel tempo ne siano stati predisposti alcuni, essi non sono risultati mai esaustivi, pur considerando le necessarie e inevitabili semplificazioni che devono essere adottate per fare di una scheda uno strumento pratico, di facile applicazione. Nell’ambito dell’Unità di Ricerca è stato quindi condotto un censimento delle schede di tipo “geologico” già esistenti, al fine di integrare tutte le informazioni necessarie in un unico strumento schedografico. La nuova scheda consente la raccolta sistematica e ragionata delle informazioni, permettendo una codifica omogenea delle caratteristiche morfolitologiche locali e, laddove esistano sufficienti dati, una caratterizzazione geotecnica e geofisica del sottosuolo del sito esaminato. La nuova scheda proposta, opportunamente compilata, permette di fornire una valutazione qualitativa degli effetti sismici locali ed in particolare consente, a fronte di sufficienti dati raccolti e rilevati, una prima quantificazione degli effetti di amplificazione attesi (Fa) sulla base delle recenti normative nazionali e regionali di settore.

La ricerca ha avuto l’obiettivo di indagare gli effetti di amplificazione sismica, per cause topografiche, che possono aver interessato le chiese danneggiate da alcuni terremoti storici italiani. La novità di questo studio consiste nell’aver messo a punto una metodologia di analisi che, partendo dall’osservazione degli effetti del terremoto sull’edificio, confronta il danno osservato ed il danno atteso, calcolato attraverso modelli basati su dati statisticamente affidabili, prevede una fase di rilevo delle caratteristiche geologiche, geomorfologiche, geotecniche e geofisiche dei siti di ubicazione delle chiese, arriva a quantificare, anche attraverso modellazioni numeriche della risposta sismica locale, l’influenza che la morfologia di questi siti può aver avuto nel determinare l’incremento dell’input sismico e conseguentemente del danno osservato.

The seismic response to an earthquake is correlated to the seismic source, to the propagation of the seismic waves and to the local lithologic and morphologic characteristics. To better understand the role of the geologic and morphologic conditions affecting the seismic shaking, it is necessary to perform a simple and standard characterization of the site, through the knowledge of the “on site” and bibliographic data. A new geological form has been performed, finalized to obtain a collection of the geologic, geomorphologic, geotechnical and geophysical characteristics of the studied sites. This form, if enough data are available, allows a quantification of the expected amplification effects, using the simplified methodologies of the recent national and regional codes (NTC, 2008; Conferenza delle Regioni e delle Province Autonome – Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, 2008; Regione Lombardia, 2008). These evaluations permit to synthesize the qualitative and quantitative “geologic” information of the form in an unique parameter used in civil engineering. The new “geologic” form can be used during an earthquake, considering the three different phases: prevention, emergency and reconstruction, to support the vulnerability and damage forms performed for the different structural typology of the buildings. The “geologic” form can be considered as a basic tool for seismic risk studies.

The analysis of damage on buildings affected by an earthquake allow to trace back to the defects of the structural system and the imperfections of the constructive elements with reference to the best or worst behaviour in case of seismic action. As a matter of fact the tendency of buildings to be damaged, also defined as seismic vulnerability, is strictly connected with their geometric-constructive characteristics. The damage appears as "effect" of the phenomenon that has its "cause" in the seismic action. Once the characteristics of the system are defined, it is possible to reconstruct the 'cause-effect' relation between seismic action and damage. These relations can be obtained through survey of damage caused by recent earthquake. However this methodology reveals a series of problems. The various quantities applied must be expressed with indices that allow to synthesize complex and articulated scenarios exhaustively; although the damage is a quantity that can be directly assessed by description, it is difficult to measure, as its quantification should be representative for all aspects connected with it (physical, economic, functional, social, etc.). The level of the seismic action must be expressed by a parameter that is an index of the event's destructive capacity and in direct correlation with mechanical quantities (acceleration, velocity, energy, etc.). The vulnerability is an entity able to characterize the more or less accentuated predisposition of the structures to suffer damages independently from the intensity and direction of the seismic action. In this work, subjects concerning seismic action and vulnerability shall not be dealt with, as they have already been investigated in previous works [see Grimaz S., 1992 - Cella F. 1994 and 1995]; in the following the problem of damage quantification shall therefore be explored.

The studies urban areas directed at the definition of seismic risk, raise the problem of the seismic vulnerability assessment of construction properties that require the estimation of the tendency to damage of a plurality of buildings. Very often one comes upon buildings that have been constructed in former epochs without the use of seismic codes and generally built in masonry. The leads to the search for procedures for vulnerability assessment, based on the rapid acquisition of information on existing buildings, which must furnish a sufficiently reliable assessment of the seismic damageability, generally without the possibility to refer to very sophisticated models. In previous works, assessments of seismic vulnerability have been effected using surveys transferred on National Project for Seismic Prevention (GNDT) sheets (Zonno and Ducarme, eds, 1992). These works have been realized using capes systems in order to treat with the uncertainty of the data. However, the analyses that only refer to GNDT sheets, are limited to single buildings, ideationally understood as isolated. An alternative and maybe complementary attempt is to assess the vulnerability of buildings in a global structural context using Geographic Information Systems to mapping the urban system, integrated with the surveys transferred on COOT sheets. The main characteristics of the building and the structural context, indices of a major or minor damageability, have been individuated, but it is difficult to define a rapid procedure for the assessment of seismic vulnerability. The idea was to use an expert system to codify a basis of the presently acquired knowledge and to apply it automatically on the basis of the results obtained by processes of space analyses calculated by GIS. On the basis of the data obtained with GNDT sheets, the vulnerability of the building can be assessed independently from the structural context (intrinsic vulnerability). The availability of data on the space distribution of the adjoining buildings permits an assessment on the effective vulnerability that takes into account the influence of the structural context. With relation to other works effected on the argument, the proposed system automatically assesses a large quantity of geocoded data either in geometry and in the structure of the components. In particular, in this work the seismic vulnerability assessment of the buildings is effected through the Geographic Information Systems PC Arc-Info connected with the Expert System Shell Nexpert Object, starting from the methods used by the GNDT of the National Council for Research (CNR) (Benedetti and Petrini, 1984; Baldi and Corsanego, 1987) and integrating the effects of anisotropics of the structural behaviour and context (Grimaz, 1992-93).