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Assessment of churches based on empirical data at a territorial scale is a suitable tool to have an overview of the seismic behaviour of this peculiar structural typology and to evaluate their current state of vulnerability. Fragility and vulnerability curves are also aimed to perform the analysis of different seismic scenarios. The paper presents a detailed typological analysis of 633 single-nave churches, as a selected subset of the database previously examined by the authors, with the aim of evaluating more in detail the influence of some parameters, such as masonry typology, church dimensions and presence of the bell tower, on the vulnerability of the overall church. Then, specific analyses are carried out to assess the influence played by single mechanisms on the definition of the overall damage index, with the focus of providing qualitative evaluations and explicit vulnerability and fragility curves related to the most recurring and significant collapse mechanisms. This is an original contribution of the paper in the field of the vulnerability assessment of churches, since nowadays little information is available in the literature about the damage levels related to specific mechanisms, while most attention is still focused on global damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic events that struck Italy in the last years had a dramatic impact on historical and cultural heritage. Damage occurred on existing masonry buildings, in particular on churches, stressed out the need to better understand the seismic behaviour of this type of constructions as well as to define more appropriate mitigation strategies to be applied at large scale. This study deals with a predictive methodology for vulnerability assessment of churches in large territorial areas. Focusing the attention on three naves churches of Abruzzi, the paper proposes modifications and integrations of an existing methodology taken by literature. These modifications are defined through a calibration procedure based on damage observation of 64 three naves churches located at different distances from the epicentre of the 2009 earthquake. The proposed model is employed to predict damage level distribution for different earthquake intensities, allowing fragility curves to be plotted and therefore potential damage scenarios to be represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study was to estimate the damage rate of steel and masonry buildings for different regions of Taiwan from future earthquakes according to the empirical data of 1999 M 7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake, Taiwan. The results are presented in quadratic equation relating building damage rates with modified Mercalli intensity. It is found that two zones are subject to high building damage rates. One zone extends from Hsinchu southward to Taichung, Nantou, Chiayi, and Tainan in western Taiwan, and the other extends from Ilan southward to Hualian and Taitung in eastern Taiwan. These zones are also characterized by low b values and also coincide with high peak ground shaking parameters. We also present the damage rates as function of waiting time for steel and masonry buildings in ten main metropolitans of Taiwan. The results show relatively low expected damage rates in Hengchun, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. But relatively high damage rates are found for most other areas. These results should be of use to government regulators and practicing engineers to enforce appropriate building codes to effectively mitigate potential seismic hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]