System Identification and Seismic Assessment Modeling Implications for Italian School Buildings

Extensive damage to school buildings has been observed during past earthquakes in Italy, with the 2002 Molise earthquake resulting in the complete collapse of a school building, leading to numerous casualties. In this paper, data provided by instruments installed in a number of school buildings throughout Italy from both ambient vibration and triggered dynamic vibration following the 2016 Central Italy earthquake are compared with predictions of numerical models. This comparison of predicted and measured structural response characteristics is investigated to provide practicing engineers with further insight into and validation of the accuracy of typical modeling techniques compared with instrumented responses of numerous different building typologies subjected to different dynamic excitations. Initial comparisons demonstrate reasonable agreement between the numerically predicted modes of vibration and natural frequencies from ambient vibration measurements, with further numerical parametric studies exhibiting improved matching. Additional comparative analyses are considered to discuss the potential impacts on the seismic assessment of existing structures within a performance-based seismic assessment framework.