Seismic vulnerability analysis for masonry hospital structures: Expeditious and detailed methods

The assessment of the structural vulnerability for existing buildings in Italy is a key aspect for the seismic risk reduction, in particular for strategic and relevant buildings, because of their importance for the civil protection. Different approaches can be used: expeditious/empirical methods, based on qualitative evaluations, analytical methods, based on detailed models, or hybrid methods, based instead on simplified numerical models. In case of a wide sample of buildings, the use of empirical methods is necessary in order to obtain a first screening of the buildings and to delineate a vulnerability classification, which can be used as a priority list for further detailed analyses. In this work, the comparison among an empirical approach (Vulnerability Index Method, G.N.D.T., 1993) and a detailed approach (pushover analysis) on a sample of 20 masonry hospital structures is carried out. The critical analysis of the results has allowed the development of a new empirical assessment procedure, able to estimate the peak ground acceleration of capacity of masonry structures, using the information required by the II Level Vulnerability Form (G.N.D.T., 1993).