Seismic Geotechnical Hazard and Soil Response Analysis for the Historical Ecclesiastical Buildings of the City of Catania (Italy)

The present study is part of a research project, namely "Detailed Scenarios and Actions for Seismic Prevention of Damage in the Urban Area of Catania", financed by the National Department for the Civil Protection and the National Research Council-National Group for the Defense Against Earthquakes (CNR-GNDT). This paper summarized the results of a study carried out to evaluate the seismic geotechnical hazard for the seismically area of Catania. In order to acquire preliminary elements of knowledge, it was performed an investigation based on the inspection of some historical ecclesiastical buildings of great importance, located in the city of Catania. Then, in order to identify the amplification effects due to the site conditions, a geotechnical survey form was prepared, to allow a semi-quantitative evaluation of the seismic geotechnical hazard for these historical buildings. The Churches upon which the analysis has been carried out are: St. Domenico, St. Vito, St. Sebastiano, St. Giuseppe al Duomo, St. Agata alle Sciare, St. Maria del Soccorso, St. Camillo, St. Maria della Concordia, St. Nicola alla Rena. In addition, to evaluate the foundation soil time-history response for all these ecclesiastical buildings, it was employed a 1-D dynamic hysteretic simplified soil response model, considering the non-linearity of soil behavior and its hysteretic damping.