Static and Seismic Assessment of a 20th Century Architectural Masterpiece: Artemio Franchi Stadium in Florence

A static and seismic assessment study of “Artemio Franchi” Stadium in Florence is presented in this paper. The study is based on the documentation collected on the original design of Pier Luigi Nervi and the refurbishment works carried out for the World Football Championship of 1990, as well as on extensive on-site experimental campaigns aimed at attaining an adequate knowledge level of the reinforced concrete structure. These campaigns included tests concerning the mechanical properties of the materials and checks on local reinforcement details, and dynamic characterization tests on the bleacher blocks constituting the structure and Maratona Tower. The results of the diagnostic investigations prompted the generation of a complete and detailed finite element model of the Stadium, by which its static conditions and seismic performance were evaluated. A synthesis of the architectural and structural survey, the testing campaigns and the computational analyses is reported herein.