Cultural Heritage Monuments and Historical Buildings: Conservation Works and Structural Retrofitting

The preservation and strengthening of historical constructions over time is highly to be supported due to their cultural and heritage value and the potential economic exploitation related to tourism. Old masonry buildings are subjected to slow aging processes, which must be monitored in order to prevent irreversible deterioration of materials and structural damage, as well as reduce vulnerability to natural hazards, in particular earthquakes. Conservation requirements may be summarized with the principle of “minimum intervention”, which is based on the idea of maintaining, as much as possible, the original characteristics of the buildings, avoiding the use of invasive strengthening techniques that would compromise their authenticity. However, the daily use of this building stock, which is very important to avoid abandonment, raises the problem of complying not only building conservation but also safety principles. Within this scope, the selection and use of correct structural modelling tools to assess the present state and to support the design of the necessary strengthening interventions is a challenging issue. Thus, this chapter presents, by means of case studies, examples of methodological approaches for the diagnosis and seismic assessment of historical structures, as well as for the design of retrofitting and strengthening works.