New Earthquake Engineering Findings from University of Roma ‘La Sapienza’ Reported (Seismic Demand of the 2016-2017 Central Italy Earthquakes)

2019 DEC 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Engineering Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Engineering - Earthquake Engineering. According to news reporting originating in Rome, Italy, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “The seismic sequence which started on August 24th, 2016, caused hundreds of casualties, damage and collapses in four regions of Central Italy (Lazio, Umbria, Abruzzo and Marche). The strongest event, which occurred on October 30th (M-w 6.5), was forerun by four earthquakes with magnitude between 5.4 and 6.0.”

Financial support for this research came from Ministry of the Instruction, University and Research of Italy (MIUR).

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from the University of Roma ‘La Sapienza’, “So far, a total of nine events with magnitude greater than or equal to 5.0 have taken place in the affected area. The earthquakes were caused by normal faults, all of them having NW-SE or NNW-SSE strike, approximately along the spine of the Apennine Mountains. The hypocentres of the events were at a shallow depth, between 8 and 10 km. The building stock in the affected area is mainly characterised by unreinforced masonry and reinforced concrete ordinary buildings, churches and historical constructions. Different municipalities, severely damaged, were not classified as seismic prone until 1981, or were originally attributed to a seismic zone with lower seismicity compared to the current one. This circumstance can explain, to a certain extent, the observed seismic response. In this study, aimed at interpreting the observed damage, the assessment of the damage potential of the ground motions recorded during the strongest events is performed by means of conventional and unconventional parameters. Specifically, elastic spectral demands, in terms of pseudo-accelerations, energies (equivalent velocity), displacements and rocking rotations are estimated, discussed and, whenever appropriate, compared with those of Italian seismic codes.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Finally, different parameters related to the ground motion records destructiveness are calculated and compared with those obtained for other Italian earthquakes, highlighting how severe the 2016-2017 seismic sequence was.”

For more information on this research see: Seismic Demand of the 2016-2017 Central Italy Earthquakes. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 2019;17(10):5399-5427. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering can be contacted at: Springer, Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3311 Gz Dordrecht, Netherlands. (Springer - www.springer.com; Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering - http://www.springerlink.com/content/1570-761x/)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting F. Mollaioli, University of Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Rome, Italy. Additional authors for this research include O. AlShawa, L. Liberatore, D. Liberatore and L. Sorrentino.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-018-0449-y. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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