Damage survey and structural assessment of the Rosario church in Finale Emilia after the May 2012 earthquake in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

The paper is aimed at presenting some results regarding the causes of damage of a masonry church (Chiesa del Rosario) located in Finale Emilia, a town stricken by the May 2012 Emilia Romagna seismic event. The church exhibits a diffused state of damage on the façade (rocking along a horizontal hinge), lateral nave walls (shear), transect (shear and outof- plane bending) and bell tower (detachment at the connection of the tower to the church and subsequent rotation along a vertical axis). The approach adopted is multidisciplinary and it is conducted within a research project that involves the Technical Universities of Milan, the Technical University of Bari and the Italian Cultural and Architectural Heritage Ministry (MiBAC). The survey analyses conducted comprise a detailed geometric recover of the volumes and materials used, basing on post-seismic photogrammetric studies, historical research on existing documentation and repeated in situ investigation. Preliminary structural analyses are conducted in agreement with the Italian Code. In particular, full pushover analyses on a detailed FE discretization are performed, providing an estimate of failure seismic acceleration and automatically identifying the most critical parts of the church as well as the failure mechanism active, to compare with the 28 possible local collapse mechanisms provided by the Italian Guidelines on the built heritage.