Seismic assessment of masonry buildings accounting for limited knowledge on materials by Bayesian updating

Several building codes propose methodologies to account for epistemic uncertainties in the seismic assessment of masonry buildings by selecting a knowledge level and reducing material strengths by means of the associated value of the confidence factor. Previous works showed that, in the case of masonry structures, this approach has various limitations, such as the lack of proper consideration of experimental tests performed. This article focuses on the issue of imperfect knowledge on material properties of existing masonry buildings and proposes a probabilistic methodology for the assessment, based on Bayesian updating of mechanical properties. The use of a Bayesian approach allows to update the values of the material properties assumed a priori as knowledge on the building increases, by taking into account all the experimental information gathered during the assessment process. A large number of simulated assessments is carried out and the values of the confidence factors on material properties are defined through the comparison between the obtained results and those of the reference structure, assumed to be perfectly known. These factors are useful in a more general framework for the assessment of masonry buildings accounting for different sources of uncertainty.