Fornale Engineering, in collaboration with Eng. Valeria Rizzotti, oversaw the structural design for the seismic retrofitting of the former nursery school in Staggia (MO), damaged by the Emilia earthquake.
The intervention was complicated by the fact that a significant amount of time elapsed between the earthquake and the start of construction, during which partial collapses occurred, causing further damage to the building.
We worked on a building with a partially collapsed roof slab, severely damaged underlying floors, masonry damaged by shear failure, widespread lintel failures, and severe cracks in the brick vaults of the staircases.
SIMPLIFIED LIST OF INTERVENTIONS PERFORMED
The following interventions were designed and executed:
- working on the connections between orthogonal masonry piers to create connectivity and ensure their collaboration;
- reinforcing the timber floors and making the floor plane as rigid as possible (without being able to replace any elements due to frescoed soffits);
- repairing cracked masonry piers;
- repairing and consolidating the brick vaults of the staircase;
- creating the necessary lintels at openings;
- creating a closing ring beam at the roof slab level (using fibers applied to both faces and tied with tufts);
- reconstructing the roof slab where it had collapsed and replacing or reinforcing the existing framework where inadequate for current loads.
The seismic retrofitting intervention was simplified by the particular “compactness” of the building’s floor plan and the presence of well-arranged and well-designed masonry piers.
In this project, we paid particular attention to floor interventions due to constraints related to the heritage authority and the need to maintain minimum internal clear heights.
If you are interested in further information on how we retrofitted the floors, please visit the following link.
Assignment: Structural Co-Design for Seismic Retrofitting
