META-FORMA: an automated procedure for urban scale seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry aggregates

The paper presents META-FORMA (MEchanical-Typological Approach FOR Masonry Aggregates), an automated procedure for the seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry aggregates at urban scale. The study addresses the issue of performing seismic analysis in presence of a limited knowledge framework, typical of masonry buildings at this scale of analysis, proposing an automated algorithm able to generate and analyze a large set of numerical models, as representative of recurrent aggregate configurations in a certain urban sector. Exploiting the interoperability between the programming software MATLAB and the structural analysis and design software POR2000, a large set of numerical models have been generated, as combination of few input parameters on recurrent geometrical and mechanical typological features of structural units, derived from multi-source data. After, nonlinear static analyses have been performed on each model, obtaining the bilinear curves and the capacity demand ratios as output. The proposed approach has been developed for a row aggregate configuration, typical of the historical centers of the Puglia Region, and the application has allowed to obtain with a low computational burden, a proper database of input and output parameters for a wide set of models, useful for a rapid and simplified estimate of the seismic behavior of masonry aggregates.