Experimental dynamic identification of strategic building structures under real seismic loading

Public buildings such as hospitals, schools, churches and city halls constitute an asset of strategic importance for the life of a community, whose vulnerability to natural hazards can be advantageously evaluated by means of permanent vibration monitoring systems. In the event of an earthquake, these systems can track the actual structural dynamics, allowing the experimental identification and calibration of numerical models for assessment or rehabilitation purposes. This concept has recently inspired the foundation, within the Italian Department of Civil Protection, of a national network for the permanent seismic monitoring of more than one hundred strategic buildings. Four of these buildings have been selected as case studies in the framework of the inter-university Italian DPC-ReLUIS 2010-2013 Project to the aim of dynamic characterization. This paper briefly introduces the said case studies and exemplifies the identification procedure on one of them, the city hall of San Romano in Garfagnana.