Gaetano Manfredi

• Professor (Full) at University of Naples Federico II

Existing reinforced concrete buildings in the Mediterranean area are very vulnerable to seismic actions due to lack of proper seismic detailing and poor quality of concrete. Furthermore, they are likely to exhibit significant earthquake damage to non-structural components such as infills and partitions. Reconstruction processes followed to recent s...

This paper aims at presenting a new model of cladding panels of single-story RC precast buildings. Recent post-earthquake surveys show the high vulnerability of cladding panel-to-structure connections, which failure caused large economic and human losses. Two different three-dimensional nonlinear models are defined: i. a bare model, where the panel...

The School of Engineering Main Building of the University of Naples “Federico II” has been for years the core of an experimental research in the area of the structural monitoring aimed at the seismic risk mitigation and management. It is a relevant scientific and technical problem still of current interest, especially because it is a building chara...

Fabric-reinforced cementitious matrix (FRCM) composites are currently considered a suitable solution for strengthening existing structures. Confinement applications are still being investigated, since experimental programs showed significant scatter in the results and theoretical models are struggling to become established as a consequence. The mai...

Corrosion of reinforcement is the main reason of degradation in reinforced concrete structures, mainly caused by carbonation and chloride ions attack, with evident effect on the safety and reliability of the structures. In this work experimental tests have been carried out aimed at estimating the variations of the load bearing capacity of structura...

In this work, cyclic-load tests on reduced-scale corroded reinforced-concrete hollow cross-section bridge piers have been experimentally performed and compared to the results of similar non-corroded piers. Piers were aged by using an imposed electric current and sodium chloride water solution before performing a mechanical cyclic-load test. The cor...

Nonstructural elements are typically associated with high seismic risk, regarding functioning interruption, economic losses, and casualties. Architectural elements such as infills and internal partitions are often associated with major construction costs, and, even in case of relatively frequent earthquakes, the post-event repair costs might be cri...

In existing Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings, the out-of-plane (OOP) collapse of masonry infills can be a significant issue for resulting damage and life safety in case of earthquake. Quite recently, research works from the literature have studied possible strengthening strategies to reduce the vulnerability of the infill panels due to OOP loadin...

The definition of relationships between damage and losses is a crucial aspect for the prediction of seismic effects and the development of reliable models to define risk maps, loss scenarios and mitigation strategies. The paper focuses on the analysis of post-earthquake empirical data to define relationships between buildings’ damage expressed as u...

This paper investigates the creation and use of integrated IFC models to modernise traditional processes for applications to building authorities for structural engineering approvals and permits. First, we provide a brief overview of e-permit systems in the AEC sector, with the focus on solutions that implement openBIM standards like IFC, MVD, and...

This study investigates the seismic losses associated with the damage of traditional and innovative partitions housed in code-conforming RC frame buildings. Three-story buildings located in low-to-high seismicity sites in Italy are considered. Nonlinear multiple-stripe analyses are performed according to the conditional spectrum approach. The parti...

Over the past decade, the fields of civil engineering, i.e., structural engineering, have increasingly used the building information modelling (BIM) approach in both professional practice and as the focus of research. However, the field of structural engineering, which can be seen as a sub-discipline of civil engineering, misses, as far as the auth...

The process of constructing structural systems produces a huge amount of documentation that traces human activities on a construction site. While the building information modelling approach introduces common data environments (CDEs) to support document management, communication between them is limited, and mainly involves the use of email and activ...

The definition of relationships between damage and losses is a crucial aspect for the prediction of seismic effects and the development of reliable models to define risk maps, loss scenarios and mitigation strategies. The paper focuses on the analysis of post-earthquake empirical data to define relationships between buildings’ damage expressed as u...

Recent devastating earthquakes outlined the importance of quantifying losses and the amount of resources needed for the reconstruction process. The restoration of public or residential buildings in the aftermath of the seismic event may significantly affect national economy. This remarks the primary role and crucial need of having accurate predicti...

The paper illustrates the seismic performance assessment of a bridge substructure simulating typical existing Italian highway bridges. The reference structural system is a reinforced concrete (RC) 1:3 scale single span bridge, tested on the shaking table system at the University of Naples, Italy. The testing facility consists of two 3m x 3m square...

The out-of-plane (OOP) response of unreinforced masonry (URM) infill walls under seismic loading has been widely studied in very recent times with both experimental and numerical investigations. It is recognized that the damage of infills due to in-plane (IP) seismic actions has a significant influence on their OOP response, by reducing the OOP str...

Capacity design, according to the modern seismic building codes, requires the application of specific rules and construction details in order to prevent brittle failure modes at material, element and structural level. In particular, with reference to single-story precast reinforced concrete structures with columns joined by pinned beams, the Italia...

The condition of undamaged or lightly damaged internal partitions after seismic events is of utmost importance for at least three building performance levels: i) life safety, ii) operational and iii) damage. Indeed, victims may be caused by the weight of falling partitions, the obstruction of the ways out and the dust released by some (e.g. brick)...

RC buildings designed for gravity loads only or according to obsolete seismic codes are widespread worldwide also in seismic prone areas. Numerical and experimental studies highlighted that the presence of masonry infills in Reinforced Concrete (RC) frames leads to the increase in their lateral strength and stiffness. Nevertheless, post-earthquake...

A wrong version of table 11 was present in the manuscript. Its updated and corrected version, consistent with the curves of Fig. 9, is herein reported (Table 1).

A set of about 25,000 residential reinforced concrete (RC) buildings has been investigated in this study to define fragility curves. The sample originates from a wide database, reported in the online Da.D.O. (Database of Observed Damage) platform, related to about 320,000 buildings inspected in the aftermath of the nine most devastating earthquakes...

Seismic events worldwide clearly showed that a crucial issue for life-safety and reduction of losses due to earthquakes for reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is related to the out-of-plane (OOP) collapse of infill masonry walls. In the literature, few studies addressed this paramount topic. This paper presents an experimental work about the assess...

Typical European precast buildings commonly show dowel beam-to-column connections which consist of vertical steel dowels, embedded in the column and passing through or inserted in holes in the beam. These connections can be characterized by two different failure modes depending on the concrete cover/dowel diameter ratio so that the failure mode inv...

This study focuses on the seismic vulnerability of masonry buildings damaged by the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. A geo-referenced database of 32,520 masonry residential buildings was compiled in the aftermath of the earthquake under the coordination of the Italian Department of Civil Protection through the AeDES survey form. The availability of this e...

Seismic risk analysis allows investigating the consequences of earthquakes in a region of interest. Most of the existing risk-oriented studies focus on new developments and/or on the integration of most up-to-date information in the fields of seismic hazard evaluation and vulnerability assessment. Conversely, no specific effort was devolved on eval...

In the transition from the design phase to the construction phase, deliverables such as project plans and technical specifications must be delivered to the authorities in charge which have the task of ensuring project compliance with local codes before issuing a construction permit. Unfortunately, significant information for those in charge of thes...

In the aftermath of the Mw 6.0 August 24, 2016 Central Italy earthquake, the authors carried out a reconnaissance survey in the municipality of Amatrice and gathered extensive photographic evidence of damage, with emphasis on 37 reinforced concrete buildings located outside the historical centre. Damage distribution is generally represented by wide...

The seismic assessment of the vulnerability of existing public structures, especially school buildings, is a crucial issue in seismic prone countries. Recently, several national and regional programs and activities have focussed on the mitigation of Italian public buildings. They promote the scheduling of public buildings’ structural safety assessm...

BIM methodologies and technologies find their place in structural engineering issues that deals with huge amount of data to properly gather and organize in order to streamline their retrieval. Current research is interested in investigating new BIM processes and approaches that can add benefits to structural engineering from different perspectives....

La definizione di modelli affidabili per la stima delle perdite è un aspetto cruciale nella conoscenza dei possibili effetti di un terremoto e, quindi, strumento indispensabile per la definizione di mappe di rischio, strategie di mitigazione e conseguenti scenari di perdite. Il lavoro focalizza l’attenzione sui modelli di correlazione tra il danno...

SOMMARIO In un Paese ad alto rischio sismico, quale l'Italia, è di primaria importanza la sensibilizzazione del cittadino in merito al rischio sismico. A tal fine, la Fondazione Inarcassa, il Consiglio Nazionale degli Ingegneri e Consiglio Nazionale degli Architetti con il supporto scientifico del Consiglio Superiore dei Lavori pubblici, del Dipart...

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) encompasses quantitative estimation of seismic hazard at a site by considering all plausible earthquake scenarios. The outcome of a PSHA is often reported as the mean rate of exceeding a specific ground motion intensity measure at a given site. This study attempts to perform PSHA for the western area of...

Example of performed tests on as-built unreinforced masonry infills: out-of-plane monotonic loading after the application of an in-plane cyclic displacement history

In recent years, especially after recent earthquakes, significant progress has been made in the understanding of structural behaviour and in the development of effective intervention strategies for the seismic risk mitigation of existing structures. The effectiveness of innovative reinforcement techniques has been demonstrated in many scientific st...

Past and more recent seismic events worldwide clearly showed that a crucial issue for life-safety and loss reduction due to earthquakes for existing reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is related to the out-of-plane (OOP) collapse of infill masonry walls. In literature, few stud-ies addressed this paramount topic, above all about the proposal of str...

The post-earthquake inspections for the assessment of buildings’ usability have a key role in the post-earthquake emergency phases. In particular, a primary importance is given to the damage and usability assessment of public buildings, which is crucial for a quick recovery of the social activity. A significant contribution in the usability evaluat...

The analysis of the behaviour of masonry infills under out-of-plane (OOP) and in-plane (IP) loading is paramount to correctly assess the seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) frames. A very important issue about this topic is certainly the IP/OOP interaction, namely the analysis of how the IP damage, which affects infills during earthquak...

Il volume si concentra sulle relazioni tra le innovazioni tecnologiche e sociali e le nuove opportunità e sfide che si raccolgono intorno al sistema della formazione. La riflessione esplora gli intrecci tra possibili scenari educativi e i contesti sociali, economici e culturali contemporanei. Scenari che si nutrono di innovazione, creatività e con-...

The development and the validation of proper capacity models for displacement-based assessment and nonlinear modelling of Reinforced Concrete (RC) members are certainly paramount both for pre-normative guidelines and for the seismic fragility analysis of existing buildings. Existing models for deformation capacity assessment and modelling of RC col...

Recently, corrosion prevention and monitoring of reinforced concrete (RC) structures became an important issue for seismic assessment of such kind of structures. Therefore, it is important to develop adequate models to represent material degradation into seismic behavior simulation of RC structures. Because of its effects, corrosion represents the...

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a facility and is used to manage an entire construction process (design, construction and management across the entire lifecycle). BIM can be regarded as both a digital representation of a building and a store of data with which to fac...

Historical centers are places where local identity principles and contemporary dynamics of urbanization coexist. They conserve cultural heritage, hence the presence of many historical assets makes these places highly vulnerable and exposed.

A systematic parametric study is performed to both (a) investigate the influence of P-Δ effects on the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) precast one-story structures; and (b) assess the efficiency of the corresponding code provisions. At this aim, different design approaches are considered to critically review current design provisions i...

LINK to the article: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29ST.1943-541X.0002114 In reinforced concrete industrial precast structures, one of the most common forms of seismic damage is the collapse of the cladding panels because of the failure of the panel-to-structure connections. This damage is caused by the interaction between the pa...

Reinforced Concrete (RC) framed buildings with clay masonry infills represent a very common structural typology worldwide for civil, strategic or productive use. Nevertheless, damage to infills may cause danger for human lives and strongly affected economic losses due to past earthquakes, in current practice, infills are considered as partition ele...

Existing RC buildings of the Mediterranean area commonly show high variability in the material mechanical properties because of the construction age and manufacturing processes. Such a variability has been confirmed by number of in-situ tests performed during the reconstruction process in the aftermath of L’Aquila 2009 earthquake. In this context,...

Earthquakes occurred in the last twenty years in Mediterranean area had a significant impact at economic and social level. A significant part of economic losses for RC frames was due to damage to non-structural components, particularly to masonry infills and partitions. Therefore, the seismic behaviour of masonry infills should be reliably characte...

We show the results of response spectrum analyses performed on a 1980's steel structure with a seismic-resistant system made of RC walls. The aim is to quantify the impact of different choices, usually left to the engineering judgment, on the evaluation of the seismic demand for structures like that of the case study. The analyses show that seismic...

Beam-column joints represent very important elements of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. In fact, beams and columns, at the boundary, generate internal forces acting on concrete core and on reinforcement bars with a very high gradient. To fully understand the seismic performances and the failure modes of T-shaped beam-column joints (external co...

Nonstructural components should be subjected to a careful and rational seismic design, in order to reduce economic loss and to avoid threats to the life safety, as well as what concerns structural elements. The design of nonstructural components is based on the evaluation of the maximum inertial force, which is related to the floor spectral acceler...

Recent earthquakes have shown the key role of post-earthquake technical inspections aimed at assessing the seismic safety and/or usability of buildings and the functionality of infrastructural systems, in order to minimize the impact of losses on citizens as fast as possible. The AeDES form is used to evaluate the safety conditions of buildings in...

Historical centers are places where local identity principles and contemporary dynamics of urbanization coexist. They conserve cultural heritage, hence the presence of many historical assets makes these places highly vulnerable and exposed. Accordingly, historical centers need to be managed in order to guarantee proper resilience levels. This is pa...

Gli eventi sismici registrati a partire dal 24 agosto 2016 hanno interessato quattro regioni del centro Italia: Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche e Umbria. Nella fase di emergenza particolare attenzione è stata posta alla valutazione del danno e dell'agibilità degli edifici scolastici al fine di consentire una rapida ripresa delle attività scolastiche. Il con...

Il sisma che ha colpito l'Abruzzo il 2009 è uno dei più documentati della storia recente. La quantità di dati a disposizione permette di effettuare analisi che non trovano eguali in altri eventi catastrofici. Nella presente memoria viene fornito il resoconto di un'ampia attività di ricerca incentrata sull'analisi dei dati collegati alle attività po...

The earthquake that hit the Abruzzo region in 2009 was one of the most documented in recent history. The amount of available data allows to carry out analyzes never before conducted for past catastrophic events. This paper provides a summary of extensive research activity focusing on the achieved outcomes by government and local institutions activi...

A study on the dynamic response of one-story building, made by yellow regular Neapolitan blocks and mortar with poor mechanical properties in a traditional texture of existing masonry structures is herein illustrated. The seismic response of the masonry building has been investigated by means of shake-table tests on 1/2-scale model. Seismic inputs...

Recent European earthquakes demonstrated that the seismic response of RC precast structures can be significantly influenced by the connection systems. Moreover, during past seismic events, many failures of the beam-to-column connections occurred due to their inadequate strength under seismic loads. The seismic safety of these connections has a cruc...

The 2009 L’Aquila earthquake left approximately 67,000 homeless people. The earthquake severely damaged facilities, structures, and infrastructure of L’Aquila town, the capital of Abruzzo region, as well as 56 other municipalities in the so-called “crater”. The resident population in the crater area at the time of the earthquake included 68,503 inh...

Assessing urban resilience is nowadays one of the main goals of the scientific community dealing with natural catastrophes. This plays even a higher role in case of historic centres that have to be preserved from future disasters according to general principles of conservation and safety. Accordingly, a methodology is proposed to quantify catastro...

The frequency and severity of natural catastrophes have increased significantly over the last few years, with countries around the world having to face huge economic and human losses. Italy in particular is very seismic-prone, being located in the precise area of convergence between the African and Eurasian lithospheric plates. In addition, most Ita...

The high vulnerability of existing Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures, even to moderate seismic events, has been confirmed from recent post-earthquake surveys. Short and wall-like RC columns are particularly prone to brittle failures, governed by concrete crushing. To reduce the vulnerability of existing RC columns, the use of externally bonded Fi...

After the April 6, 2009, L'Aquila earthquake the damage and usability assessment of buildings were evaluated by in situ inspections carried out on each building in the seismic area through the AeDES form. Several Ordinances of the Prime Minister were issued to regulate repair standards and criteria for re-occupancy of private damaged buildings outs...

Prompt and efficient responses against natural hazards are needed to build cities capable of withstanding disasters, namely resilient cities. This study aims at presenting and testing synthetic resilience indices over a real urban center threatened by multiple hazards, for which a global overview of city performance is requested. An integrated frame...

Reinforced concrete bridges represent a majority of the Italian stock and they play a primary role to ensure the efficiency of the transportation network and prompt rescue in the case of an emergency. However, most of them have been designed and built according to outdated codes, or even without any seismic detailing. The significant impact of stro...

It is desirable that nonlinear dynamic analyses for structural fragility assessment are performed using un-scaled ground motions. The wide-spread use of a simple dynamic analysis procedure known as Cloud Analysis, which employs un-scaled records and linear regression, has been impeded by its alleged inaccuracies. This paper investigates fragility a...

Lap-splice regions are amongst the most critical regions of Reinforced Concrete (RC) members, especially in seismic design. The goal of wrapping with Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) is provide confinement to concrete, however a further important role is either to increase the bond between the reinforcement bars (in pre-cracked conditions) or to prov...

A damage scenario on a database of Reinforced Concrete (RC) buildings subjected to the 6th April 2009 L'Aquila earthquake is derived from the application of the POST (PushOver on Shear Type models) procedure, a simplified analytical methodology for seismic vulnerability assessment of RC buildings at large scale. Based on the simplified assumption o...

Innovative materials and technologies have been developed to limit the effects of earthquakes on structures, and the use of composite materials has been shown to be effective in existing buildings. In view of this background, experimental tests can provide a contribution to the interpretation of available strengthening interventions. The results of...

The study analyses the data related to a database of 7597 private Reinforced Concrete buildings located in the city and the province of L’Aquila surveyed after the 2009 earthquake. Survey data were collected by the Italian Department of Civil Protection during post-earthquake usability inspections including information on building characteristics,...

In the immediate post-earthquake, the safety conditions of buildings are commonly evaluated by field visual inspections. Then, a second phase involves the design of repair interventions and the relevant funding requests to the government or to insurance companies. The paper discusses the data related to the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, focusing on the...

The paper deals with a general method to obtain a closed-form analytical solution of the problem of bending of a shear deformable beam resting on an elastic medium. Within a well posed analytical framework, the basic equations governing the interaction problem, can be obtained in strong form by a differential formulation based on both the constitut...

Different procedures for assessing the robustness of a reinforced concrete (RC) frame under progressive damage are proposed and compared. The removal of a column in a RC frame structure is modeled with a commercial nonlinear finite element software according to three alternative strategies: (i) reduction of mechanical properties of the damaged colu...

This study aims to define a methodological framework that could guide construction community stakeholders in conducting environmental sustainability comparisons among building systems at the design stage. The study proceeds on the basis that the design of new structures starts with specific requirements, including national technical standards. An a...

Assessment of the seismic damage and usability of the building stock started a few days after the L’Aquila earthquake in order to evaluate the safety conditions of the buildings concerned. Several ordinances of the Prime Minister were issued to regulate the reconstruction process. In particular, based also on damage level, the procedures for repair...

The reconstruction process of residential buildings severely damaged by the 06 April 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, the so called “heavy damage” reconstruction, started after the “light damage” reconstruction process. The “heavy damage” reconstruction involved buildings outside the historical centres assessed as unusable due to high structural and/or no...

Degradation of reinforced concrete (RC) structures is a serious safety problem affecting all industrialized countries, and economical aspect of this problem cannot be neglected. One of the main reasons for the degradation of RC is the corrosion of steel reinforcing bars as a result of concrete cover cracking and bar cross section reduction. As a co...