Evaluación sísmica de la iglesia San Giovanni Battista de Matera-Italia

The guidelines established by multiple Italian regulations guide the assessment and reduction of the seismic risk of protected cultural heritage, because these events are one of the main causes of damage to heritage buildings. In particular, the old masonry buildings generate specific challenges in the evaluation, diagnosis, conservation and restoration of their existing structures against the design codes of new constructions. This report contains studies carried out to determine the state of conservation, level of safety in relation to seismic actions and the projection of intervention measures aimed at guaranteeing the structural stability of the San Giovanni Battista church located in the city of Matera (Italy). The church is one of the best expressions of medieval architecture in the region and the first documentation dates back to the year 1204. It has a Greek cross plan with three naves where the central nave and the transept are much higher than the two lateral naves. The church presents a good state of conservation particularly in the interior, because some problems of deterioration and lack of maintenance on the facades were identified. Different stages were implemented in the methodology with the objective of obtaining a high level of knowledge of the church. These stages include the historical review, geometric identification and mechanical characterization of materials, damage survey, techniques, processes and construction stages, finally geotechnical, geological and seismic aspects of the area. The evaluation of the moderate seismic security present in the church is based on the correlation of qualitative and quantitative parameters. These parameters associate the seismic action for certain limit states (collapse and safeguard of life) with the vulnerability index obtained by estimating the damage that could be caused by collapse mechanisms under the kinematic approach of local macro- block failure. Based on these results, seismic improvement, reinforcement or stabilization techniques are proposed, in order to reduce the current seismic risk of the church.