Damages to Rural Buildings and Facilities Observed in the Aftermath of 2012 Emilia Earthquakes

In May 2012, two strong earthquakes hit the northern Italy and caused strong damage to both historical rural heritage and modern agricultural precast facilities. In this paper, damage and collapses observed in the aftermath surveys on historical rural and modern agricultural buildings, are presented and commented. It was observed that in the area hit by the earthquakes few recurrent typologies are present, and buildings of the same typology showed similar damage mechanisms. Therefore, in order to define the most typical damage affecting constructions in the agricultural sector, the stock of the historical rural buildings has been classified in different categories, based on layout and usage of each building. The outcomes presented in this paper allowed to identify the rural building typologies most vulnerable to earthquakes and to define recurring deficiencies for the various categories. The main reasons of the damage to historical buildings can be ascribed to lack of effective connections between orthogonal walls, poor connections and excessive flexibility of floor diaphragms. The main lacks observed in the precast facilities were the absence of mechanical connections between precast elements and the great flexibility of vertical elements inducing large horizontal displacements.