Seismic vulnerability of ancient masonry buildings: The case study of low-rise towers

The aim of this paper is the seismic vulnerability assessment of different types of low-rise towers. These buildings are typical of the Calabrian region, and have various purposes. The most common are watchtowers located along the coasts, and had a defensive role. In other cases, the low-rise towers are ruins of religious complexes located in strategic and historical areas. In particular, in this paper two structures will be investigated: the castle of “San Fili” in Stignano (RC) and the ruins of the ancient church of St Francis of Assisi in Amantea (CS). The result of this preliminary study was the creation of a simplified geometric model used for the definition of the numerical model with the FE code Abaqus CAE. In order to obtain the natural frequency of these structures, two modal shapes analysis are carried out. The last step was the execution of non-linear static analysis in order to evaluate the seismic response.