Development and application of innovative anti-seismic systems for the protection of cultural heritage: New achievements of ENEA

As described in detail at previous ASME-PVP Conferences and also reminded by separate papers presented this year, large efforts have been devoted by the Italian Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), with the cooperation of several further members of the Italian Working Group on Seismic Isolation (GLIS), to the development, validation and application of innovative anti-seismic (IAS) techniques since 1988. To date, considered have been base and floor seismic isolation (SI), energy dissipation through various types of passive devices, hydraulic coupling by means of innovative shock transmitters, systems formed by shape memory alloy devices and more recently, semi-active control of vibrations. New activities at ENEA, which are in progress in the framework of both international and national collaborations, concern the development of new IAS techniques of the aforesaid kinds to be applied to: • civil structures and industrial plants; • cultural heritage structures (CUHESs) to be restored or reconstructed, or masterpieces to be seismically protected. Progress of the work performed for civil and industrial structures has been separately presented at this Conference, while this paper deals with the new development, validation and application activities concerning the IAS techniques applicable to the seismic protection of CUHESs, to which particular attention has been devoted by ENEA for several years. The ongoing activities for CUHESs are being performed in the framework of: • PROSEESM, a national project which foresees pilot applications of the IAS techniques to the restoration of CUHESs damaged by the 1997–98 Marche and Umbria earthquakes; • a feasibilily study for the reconstruction in the original site, with SI and the original masonry materials, of Mevale di Visso, a village in the Marche Region destroyed by the aforesaid event; • a study for the design and application of an innovative three-dimensional SI system for seismic and ambient vibration protection of a roman ship excavated at Ercolano, near Naples.Copyright © 2002 by ASME