Post-seismic assessment of cultural heritage buildings: experimental and real case of use of the LiDAR

Provisional works are designed to ensure the buildings’ stability in the short term, before further works are implemented to ensure long term stability. Such installations quite often remain in place for a much longer period and are also subject to aftershocks: circumstances which raise the need to ensure the effectiveness of provisional works over the time vs. the residual stability of the targeted building.

Considering that provisional works are carried out on damaged structures, the assessment of the provisional works’ effectiveness over time cannot rely on the usual features of integrity, continuity and verticality of the structure, which were obviously lacking even at the time of the works design, but will have to leverage on the comparison between the actual condition of the structure vs. the condition of the same structure prior to the provisional works’ installation.

In this framework of post-disaster actions, it is possible to make use of software applications licensed to the Italian National Fire and Rescue Service to reassess the stability of structures subject to the stress of aftershocks, facilitating the rapid comparison of damages on two 3D point clouds of the same structure acquired at different times.

This article reports on the experience developed by Italy on the experimental use of the LiDAR during the provisional works undertaken in Central Italy following the earthquakes of Abruzzi (2009) and Umbria Regions (2023).

KEYWORDS: post-seismic assessment, LiDAR, immovable cultural heritage. In PROCULTHER-NET Project. Technical Bulletin N. 2, June 2023, pp 47-53