Seismic vulnerability of historical masonry aggregate buildings in oriental Sicily

The seismic vulnerability assessment of historical UnReinforced Masonry (URM) buildings is a complex task being strongly related to the great variety of geometrical layouts and masonry mechanical characteristics, which reflect the regional traditions in the art of building. In this paper some results of a Catania University research project (FIR 2014) on the “Seismic vulnerability of historical aggregate buildings” focused on the seismic vulnerability estimation of historical buildings, built in Catania after the 1963 earthquake, are presented. Firstly, a detailed typological analysis of the considered urban fabric, characterized by typical residential masonry buildings, has been performed. Such analysis allowed recognizing an elementary structural modulus, which has been studied according to different geometrical layouts representative of isolated or aggregate buildings. Namely, the results of nonlinear static analyses performed by applying an innovative macro-element approach, consistent to the Italian building code, have allowed providing seismic vulnerability assessments of these typical URM buildings. The numerical approach and the obtained results, although related to a particular historical centre, could also be extended to similar urban fabrics and used for the calibration of fast seismic assessment strategies, particularly useful for the evaluation of the seismic risk at urban scale.