Keywords: Emilia-Romagna earthquake, school building, 3DMacro model, 3MURI model, non-linear analysis, retrofitting intervention..

In this paper the seismic vulnerability of a school building located in Bomporto (a district of Modena), built around the second half of the XIX century and hit by the Italian Emilia-Romagna earthquake, has been assessed. Non-linear seismic analyses of the building have been conducted using two calculation programs, namely 3DMacro, with diagonal springs representing the behaviour of masonry walls under compression and tension, and 3MURI, the latter allowing for a masonry walls modelled with the equivalent frame technique, where masonry piers and spandrels are idealised with beam elements connected each to another with rigid links. First, the results achieved from two programs have been compared with the aim of identifying the most probable building seismic response. Moreover, in order to identify the main structural parts which should be retrofitted, a comparison between in-situ visual damage and numerical results has been undertaken. Subsequently, two different structural reinforcement interventions, the first with composite materials with the form of bidirectional FRP strips and the second with bidirectional steel strips, that have been first designed and then applied to the building studied and then compared with each other in terms of cost and sustainability parameters. Finally, a parametric analysis varying the geometrical configuration of the FRP intervention (strip width and spacing) has been performed with the purpose of identifying, through a cost-to-benefit comparison, the optimal retrofitting solution.

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