Post-seismic effectiveness of the strengthening work carried out with FRP applied to historical masonry buildings: the case study of the Spoleto Cathedral

  • Alessandro Grazzini 1 Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
  • Stefano Agnetti 2 Civil Engineer Ph.D., Head of Technical Department, Kimia S.p.A.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18282/cmr.v7i1.524
Keywords: Historical buildings, Seismic improvement, GFRP, Strengthening work, Fibreglass band

Abstract

The sequence of major earthquakes that has affected Italy in recent decades has required the use of materials and innovative techniques for the security of damaged buildings. Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) represents a novelty in the field of seismic improvement techniques applicable also to historical masonry buildings. The use of composite materials can respect the conservation principles of the monumental buildings. This study describes the effectiveness of the seismic improvement techniques carried out by means of FRP in the Spoleto cathedral (Italy) after the 1997 Umbria-Marche earthquake. The strengthening work concerned the making safe of damaged vault structures by means of gluing fibreglass bands (GFRP). After 20 years, during the 2016 Amatrice-Norcia earthquake, near Spoleto, the cathedral reinforced with the GFRP bands has not suffered any damage demonstrating the effectiveness of the seismic strengthening techniques.

Author Biography

Alessandro Grazzini, 1 Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering Politecnico di Torino (Italy)

Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering (DISEG)

References

Grazzini A, Chiabrando F, Foti S, Lingua A, Spanò A. Damage assessment and seismic vulnerability analysis of S. Agostino church in Amatrice. In Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering 2018, Thessaloniki, Greece, June 18-21.

Bocca P, Grazzini A, Masera D. Fatigue behaviour analysis for the durability prequalification of strengthening mortars. Journal of Physics: Conference Series 2011; 305. doi:10.1088/1742-6596/305/1/012041.

Marchetti L. La ricostruzione dei beni culturali in Umbria. Realizzazione e prospettive. Vol. 2 (in italian). Regione Umbria (Italy); 2007.

Corradi M, Borri A, Vignoli A. Strengthening techniques tested on masonry structures struck by the Umbria-Marche earthquake of 1997-1998. Constr. Build. Mater. 2002, 16(4): 229-239. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0950-0618(02)00014-4.

Benazzi G, Carbonara G. La cattedrale di Spoleto: storia arte conservazione (in italian). Federico Motta Editor. Milan (Italy); 2002.

www.kimia.it

Borri A, Castori G, Corradi M. Intrados strengthening of brick masonry arches with composite materials. Compos. B. Eng. 2011, 42(5): 1164-1172. doi: 10.1016/j.compositesb.2011.03.005.

Published
2019-04-15
Issue
Vol. 7 No. 1: (In Publishing)
Section
Articles

Copyright (c) 2018 ALESSANDRO GRAZZINI 1, Stefano AGNETTI 2

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors contributing to this journal agree to publish their articles under the  Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. With this license, the authors hold the copyright without restrictions and are allowed to retain publishing rights without restrictions as long as this journal is the original publisher of the articles.