Beyond EC8: The new Italian seismic code

Abstract

The 2002 Molise earthquake, which was defined by seismologists as a normal event in the geodynamics of the Italian peninsula but had an international resonance due to the collapse of a primary school, triggered a series of research initiatives in earthquake engineering and significant modifications to building codes in Italy. The modifications were completed at the beginning of 2008 with the release of a new comprehensive building code for Italy. This document was mainly inspired by Eurocode, but it contains some changes and improvements.

In this paper, comments are made on three specific parts of the new code: definition of seismic action, analysis of liquefaction and analysis of slope stability. For the first part, seismic action is defined based on a recent careful study of the seismic hazard in Italy. For liquefaction analysis, some developments are given, keeping the same structure used in Eurocode. Finally, for slope stability, improvements are introduced to avoid overestimation of pseudostatic forces in conventional analyses.