In-plane behaviour of an iron-framed masonry façade: comparison between different modelling strategies

Abstract

The 'baraccato' system is a construction technique with genius earthquake resilient features, used for the reconstruction of the historical city centres in the South of Italy after the catastrophic events occurred in the 18th-19th centuries. A very interesting example of such a building typology is represented by the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena, located in the municipality of Casamicciola Terme of the Ischia Island and built in 1896, after the catastrophic earthquake of 1883. The church is characterized by a mixed 'baraccato' system mainly made of yellow tuff block masonry walls strengthened by iron profiles or wooden elements. The reduced damage suffered by the church after the seismic event of 21st August 2017 evidenced the good behaviour of such a mixed structural system, especially into avoiding out-of-plane mechanisms. The presence of the iron framed system is even more challenging in the definition of the modelling strategies for the structural analysis of the church. Thus, the choice of an appropriate numerical strategy to be used for nonlinear simulation should be properly investigated since the interaction between the frame elements and the elements representing the masonry walls has to be considered. As a first step of the structural analysis of the whole church, the in-plane behaviour of the main facade of the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena is analysed in this paper, with the aim to evaluate the efficacy of different modelling strategies. In particular, the study considers different models according to Finite and Discrete Element strategies available within DIANA FEA [1] and 3DMacro [2] software, respectively. Non-linear static analyses are carried out by means of both software and the obtained results are compared and discussed with the aim of extending them to the study of the whole church.