Seismic-induced damage in historical masonry vaults: A case-study in the 2012 Emilia earthquake-stricken area

The seismic analysis of historical masonry vaults is a challenging task for contemporary engineers, as vault behavior depends on a large number of factors. Among them, the vault's response is influenced by the seismic behavior of its bearing structures. This paper aims at investigating the capabilities and limitations of current finite element-based computational tools to analyze the seismic-induced damage in masonry vaulted structures. The case under study is the Giulio II vault, located in the main tower of the San Felice sul Panaro fortress (Italy), which has been severely damaged by the 2012 Emilia earthquake. Attention is focused on the interaction between the vault and its bearing tower. The developed finite element model includes the 3D geometry of the vault within the geometry of the tower, based on a before-quake survey. Nonlinear static and dynamic analyses are carried out by using a damage-plasticity constitutive law for masonry. Numerical results are compared to the vault's actual crack pattern, as well as to its actual-deformed geometry based on a post-quake laser scanning survey.