Theoretical study for the strengthening of a series of vaults in a cultural heritage masonry building: A case study in Italy

The strengthening and the rehabilitation of existing structures represented an interesting challenge for engineers, but recently, a special attention has been dedicated to the monumental and historical constructions. These important traces of the past associate the need of structural intervention to the necessity of preserving their cultural and artistic value. For this reason, a “special” approach is nowadays required in order to correctly understand the state-of-fact of the building and so properly design the most adequate interventions. A series of national codes and international recommendations [1]-[4] have been compared in the paper in order to identify a coherent step-by-step procedure for the analysis and the design of the strengthening in sustainable ways, from both the static and aesthetic points of view. The so-obtained procedure has been used regarding an historic construction placed in the south of Italy and named “Masseria Tagliatelle”. Its cultural value is clearly testified by the presence of antique statues and frescos from the middle XIII-century. The seismic vulnerability has been pointed out on the series of vaults, which are side-by-side located. The limit static and kinematic analysis have been performed (according to [5]) by considering each single vault and the whole series. The theoretical results demonstrated that the three-vault system signify the critical vulnerability of the structure. The possible solutions, aimed to increase the seismic capacity of the above-mentioned system, are also provided and discussed