Investigations of masonry churches seismic performance with numerical models: application to a case study

Recovering and preserving ancient churches is necessary to ensure the transmission of this cultural heritage to the future generations. To this scope, it is necessary to evaluate their performance in seismic prone areas, to design interventions capable of reducing their vulnerability ensuring also their safety use for the faithful. In this paper, investigations on seismic performance of masonry churches are illustrated by applying two different numerical methods on a case study, an existing brick masonry church. The seismic assessment is conducted by applying two simplified methods proposed by the current Italian Directive containing the Guidelines for assessment and reduction of cultural heritage seismic risk. Moreover, linear kinematic analysis is used also for investigating the influence of main parameters governing to the main façade simple overturning and narthex longitudinal response. The investigations performed highlight that the activation multiplier of macro-element response mechanism may significantly vary according to the assumptions made and that also, as narthex longitudinal response, a minimization procedure of the activation multiplier is required.