SSHM and DSHM for a better knowledge and risk prevention of historical buildings: The cases of the Two Towers in Bologna and the Cathedral in Modena

In the last recent years, structural monitoring has acquired an increasing importance in the diagnosis and control of buildings, especially for historical buildings whose preservation is essential to the safeguard of cultural heritage. The aim of this study is to introduce a standardized approach for the interpretation of the large amount of data acquired from a monitoring system of historic buildings. This approach is based on the definition of specific reference quantities (extrapolated from the recorded time series) able to characterize the main features of the structural response and the preliminary identification of the order of magnitudes of these quantities. These reference quantities may be collected in a database and may become fundamental for comparing the response of similar buildings. This type of analysis has been applied to the data obtained from the Static Structural Health Monitoring (SSHM) system of two significant Italian monuments: the Cathedral of Modena and the Two Towers of Bologna (Asinelli and the Garisenda Towers), North Italy. This paper provides, also, the preliminary results of the experimental data as obtained from the Dynamic Structural Health Monitoring (DSHM) of the Asinelli Tower conducted by the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).