Damage assessment in single-nave churches and analysis of the most recurring mechanisms after the 2016–2017 central Italy earthquakes

Abstract

Assessment of churches based on empirical data at a territorial scale is a suitable tool to have an overview of the seismic behaviour of this peculiar structural typology and to evaluate their current state of vulnerability. Fragility and vulnerability curves are also aimed to perform the analysis of different seismic scenarios. The paper presents a detailed typological analysis of 633 single-nave churches, as a selected subset of the database previously examined by the authors, with the aim of evaluating more in detail the influence of some parameters, such as masonry typology, church dimensions and presence of the bell tower, on the vulnerability of the overall church. Then, specific analyses are carried out to assess the influence played by single mechanisms on the definition of the overall damage index, with the focus of providing qualitative evaluations and explicit vulnerability and fragility curves related to the most recurring and significant collapse mechanisms. This is an original contribution of the paper in the field of the vulnerability assessment of churches, since nowadays little information is available in the literature about the damage levels related to specific mechanisms, while most attention is still focused on global damage.