Seismic Vulnerability Assessment and Loss Estimation of an Urban District of Timisoara

The seismic risk evaluation of built-up areas is associated to the level of earthquake hazard, building vulnerability and level of exposure. It is well known that the large-scale vulnerability assessment is a very important topic for the protection of historical buildings and the mitigation of effects of natural phenomena on the built-up. In 2020 Timisoara will be the Capital of European Culture and, therefore, the knowledge of the number of unusable and collapsed buildings under possible earthquakes is a crucial point to plan suitable future intervention strategies from structural and urban points of view. Based on these premises, the proposed research is conducted in collaboration with the University of Naples "Federico II" with the main purpose to focus on the seismic vulnerability evaluation of buildings located within an urban-sector of Timisoara through the EMS-98 macro-seismic approach. First of all, the typological vulnerability classes of buildings according to the RISK-UE method have been defined in order to classify them from typological and structural viewpoints. Subsequently, a vulnerability form appropriately conceived for masonry aggregates has been filled for the study area buildings and the typological fragility functions have been derived for them aiming at identifying the most vulnerable constructions. Finally, parametric analysis has been carried out by varying the seismic magnitude and site-source distance in order to estimate the seismic loss estimation under earthquakes.