Seismic resilience of timber structures during the earthquake events of the past decade in Italy

The paper presents the results of an extensive survey on timber structures that were subjected to significant ground shaking during the earthquake events that struck Italy over the last decade (L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, the Emilia earthquake in 2012 and Central Italy earthquakes in 2016). Both large roof structures and timber buildings were addressed by the study. A dataset of more than one hundred case studies was isolated based on the proximity to the epicentres and the relevance of the building structures. The first phase of the research was focused on post-event condition assessment of the case studies and the definition of vulnerability indexes adequate for timber structures. Then, a selection of emblematic case studies was analysed in detail (via linear methods) in order to evaluate: 1) vulnerability indexes for structures that were not originally designed for seismic actions; 2) how existing timber buildings and structures fare when compared to the most recent seismic standard provisions. Conclusions about the methodology proposed for seismic resilience of timber structures, even when not specifically designed to withstand earthquakes, are reported.