Seismic vulnerability assessment of Venetian façades and artistic assets: Historical Digital Twin approach

The seismic vulnerability assessment of monumental facades and of their valuable artistic assets, along with considerations for protection and valorisation, requires the development of an integrated, multidisciplinary procedure able to enhance the accessibility, promotion and management of cultural heritage as well as to effectively model and simulate the structural performances of each artistic element. The multi-step methodology presented in this paper starting from an advanced survey and an appropriate tridimensional (3D) restitution, leads to the development of an Historical Digital Twin useful to create a detailed finite element model able to carry out structural simulations of both the historic facade and the artistic assets. To illustrate this methodology, the paper delves into a real case study involving a typical Venetian monumental facade, focusing on the seismic vulnerability assessment of two statues located at different levels. Emphasis is given to the importance of the 3D models to support vulnerability analysis, and to evaluate the seismic action at the points of the facade where the statues are placed. To this aim different methods are used and compared, showing on the one hand a strong dependence of the amplification of the seismic acceleration on earthquake frequency content and on the other hand the precautions to take using design-oriented predictive formulations.