Assessment of seismic ground amplification at the Chieti courthouse site

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Publication Title
Assessment of seismic ground amplification at the Chieti courthouse site

Abstract
During the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake (MW = 6.1), the Chieti courthouse was partially damaged by the ground shaking. To better understand the reasons why the damage affected essentially the southern portion of the structure, a study on local seismic response effects was carried out. The historical center of Chieti is located on the top of a hill (330 m a.s.l.), in the Periadriatic sector of Central Apennines, consisting of Pleistocene clays to sands and conglomerates deposits of the Mutignano formation (FMT), carved by Pescara and Alento rivers. The courthouse area is located above landfill deposits rich in historical artifacts, up to 10 m thick, covering sub-horizontal sandy-conglomerate deposits, about 30 m thick, which in turn overlay mostly pelitic lithofacies of the FMT several hundred meters thick. In this study, we reconstruct a geotech- nical model of the Chieti hill mainly through in-situ (boreholes, SPT, DMT and SDMT) tests. Moreover, we performed a 2D FEM site response analysis to evaluate the ground motion spatial pattern in the courthouse site in terms of main ground motion parameters. An input motion representative of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake was derived through a deconvolution of the 2009 recordings at the RAN accelerometric station of Chieti Scalo and applied at the seismic bedrock. Physical phenomena responsible for site effects are discussed by comparing 1D and 2D site response analyses at selected points.
Authors
N. Salvatore; A. Pagliaroli; F. Di Buccio; A. Pizzi; Sara Amoroso

Published In

18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)

Theme

C - Risk analysis and safety evaluation

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