Seismic retrofitting by FRP of a school building damaged by Emilia-Romagna earthquake

A school building, located in Bomporto (Modena, Italy) and hit by the Emilia-Romagna Italian earthquake in 2012, has been investigated in the paper. The seismic vulnerabilityof the building has been evaluated by means of non-linear static analyses, which have been carriedoutthrough the 3MURI calculation program. The comparison between the damage state producedby the earthquake and the simulation results put in evidence the reliability of the numerical analysis.On the basis of the detected seismic deficiencies of the damaged building, a structuralreinforcement intervention of masonry walls has been designed by means of either FRP strips orsteel ones. Finally, a parametric analysis by varying the material and the geometrical configurationof the FRP intervention (width and spacing of the strips) has been performed with the purpose toidentify, through a cost-to-benefit comparison, the optimal retrofitting solution.