Seismic Risk of Monumental Buildings: Outcomes of the Research Project RiSEM

The special collection of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities (JPCF) is on Seismic Risk of Monumental Buildings: Outcomes of the Research Project RiSEM is available in the ASCE Library (https://ascelibrary.org/page/jpcfev/outcomes_risem).

This special collection dedicated to the research project RiSEM, which is the Italian acronym for seismic risk of monumental buildings. RiSEM was funded by the Tuscany Regional Administration in Italy and carried out by a consortium including two Italian universities (through four university departments from different scientific areas) and one public institution (the Municipality of San Gimignano). The project aimed, through the creation of a network gathering complementary and synergistic expertise, at deepening the technical and scientific knowledge in the field of the seismic assessment of monumental masonry buildings. By taking into account the difficulties that arise in developing exhaustive experimental campaigns by traditional techniques, the project aimed at employing and testing innovative and expeditious methodologies (i.e., without physical contact with the masonry building) to evaluate the main characteristics needed for a first-level seismic assessment of the historic buildings. The medieval tall masonry towers in the city center of San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list, were chosen as an exemplary case study due to the structurally homogenous typology. This special collection provides a platform for sharing the outcomes of the research project and its application to other case studies within the civil engineering community. The covered topics include modeling of the seismic hazard and soil structure interaction; geometric, material, and historic survey; evaluation of the dynamic properties of the towers by means of interferometric techniques; and fragility models and analysis methods to predict the response and the reliability of structural systems subjected to seismic loads.