Case study of the seismic vulnerability of a historical building in Timisoara, Romania.

Timisoara is a city located in the western part of Romania, in an area characterised by shallow earthquakes of crustal type, with a design seismic acceleration ag=0.20g. The city has a lot of historical buildings in Secession, Art Nouveau and Baroque architectural style, located in Cetate, Iosefin and Fabric districts. The typical buildings are made in brick masonry and lime, with massive perimetral walls and masonry vaults or wooden floors. All of them were built before the existence of any design codes in Romania and many of them are in a poor conservation state, highlighting the necessity of assessing their seismic vulnerability. This paper presents the case study of one of these historical beautiful buildings in Timisoara, study which aims to assess the seismic vulnerability of the building. The vulnerability was determined both with empirical and analytical methodologies. The empirical methodology that was used is based on the vulnerability index procedure that is applied globally, but that was adapted for shallow earthquakes in previous studies by the same authors. The analytical methodology that was used is based on numerical nonlinear analysis made with Tremuri software. After both analyses were performed, the results were compared, illustrating a very good correlation between the two selected methods. The conclusion of the study is that the empirical methodology is appropriate for using it a larger scale, for similar buildings in similar seismic areas. The aim is to evaluate if by calibrating an empirical methodology for a specific area, there can be obtained specific and credible results for a very large number of buildings in a simplified and quick way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]