The S4H team, in collaboration with Dr Marco Francesco Funari, have recently published an article in Applied Sciences, entitled “A Tool for the Rapid Seismic Assessment of Historic Masonry Structures Based on Limit Analysis Optimisation and Rocking Dynamics”.

The paper presents a new multi-level procedure that combines upper bound limit analysis with non-linear rocking dynamics to model seismic collapse of masonry structures in a computationally-efficient manner.

Comparisons of the predictions of the tool in terms of seismic safety with those obtained from code-based equivalent static approaches demonstrates that the definition of safety requires a full stochastic approach, which is in fact one of the main objectives of the S4H project.

The full article can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/3/942