Probabilistic evaluation of the seismic vulnerability of rock cavities in a historical Italian site

Autori: Fabozzi S. 1, de Silva F. 2, Starita L. 1, Bilotta E. 2, Moscatelli M. 1

Affiliazioni:
1 Institute of Environmental Geology & Geoengineering – National Research Council of Italy
2 Department of Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering – University of Naples Federico II

2022 Third international symposium on GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING FOR THE PRESERVATION OF MONUMENTS AND HISTORIC SITES. 22-24 JUNE 2022 Napoli Italy

Abstract

Recent and past earthquakes have shown that underground anthropogenic cavities exca-vated in soft rock are prone to damage, posing a major threat to their safety and having major cascading and socioeconomic impacts. From an engineering point of view, the seismic vulnerability of underground cavities can be accomplished by computing the probability of damage due to the seismic actions expected on site by using fragility curves.

This work explores the applicability of this method to probabilistically evaluate the seismic vulnerability of soft rock cavities within the vision of urban resilience of his-torical Italian centers. The seismic behavior of rock cavities was assessed via finite ele-ment method approach and the factor of safety of the cavity roof calculated in seismic conditions was exploited to develop fragility curves. The proposed procedure is applied to a rock cavity under the historical center of Sant’Agata de’ Goti in the South of Italy.